Requirements Analysis

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Due TWO BUSINESS DAYS before your Design Review. Submitted through deOpus.

Requirements Analysis Executive Summary

Project Title: [Your Project Title]
Team Number: [Your Team Number]
Date: [Submission Date]

1. Project Overview

• Project context/background
• An explanation of what your project is
• Project value proposition, including the financial/business impact of the project for the sponsor. What is the overarching goal for the sponsor?

2. Sponsor/Market Requirements

Summarize the critical requirements your project must meet. This is not a copy and paste of the requirements documents but rather an explanation and discussion of why these requirements are the ones you need to ensure the project meets the sponsor’s needs.

Specific artifacts (that may contain both functional and non-functional requirements as well as measurable values, user stories, etc.) should be referenced by name in this section to support the summaries.

Artifacts should be attached in the order in which they are referenced.

3. Key Success Measures (KSM)

The top-level functional requirements determined in coordination with the sponsor and appropriate to your specific project.

• KSMs can be related to performance, security, and/or cost. Some examples of engineering KSMs include:
• Product metrics - These metrics measure attributes of a product, such as its size, features, design, quality, and reliability.
• Process metrics - These metrics analyze the procedures, tools, methods, and deployment cycles of software engineering.
• People effort - These metrics include the total number of people contributing to the project in each iteration, and users contributing to the project over a relevant timespan.
• Business impact - These metrics include project ROI (return on investment), time-to-market, feature adoption rate, project status alignment, etc.

The KSMs for your project might include items from one or two of these categories, or they might include metrics from all of the categories. The team must determine the KSMs specific to your project and in consultation with your sponsor, who must approve your KSMs.

WE RECOMMEND HAVING YOUR SPONSOR APPROVE YOUR REQUIREMENTS IN WRITING (EMAIL CONFIRMATION) TO ENSURE THAT THERE HAVE NOT BEEN ANY MISUNDERSTANDINGS. INCLUDING THAT AS AN ARTIFACT WOULD MAKE SENSE.

Your team should determine the best format for presenting your KSMs. It could be in paragraph form, a table, a wireframe, or some other form appropriate to your project.

4. Project Plan

• Plan for how the project will be managed (roles & responsibilities, pm systems, assignment and report back structure, team meeting plan, etc.)
• How/when sponsor communications will happen
• Summary of sponsor expectations for desired project documentation and delivery with reference to the specific artifact that addresses this
• Schedule for specific team activities between now and the next design review

POSSIBLE DOCUMENTATION

Your documentation is likely to include these AND other documentation may be included also. Whatever is needed for your project should be included as part of your PDF submission.

• Project Value Proposition
• Engineering Requirements Specifications – requirements matrix, software specification, requirement metrics, etc
• Schedule for project-specific milestones
• Anticipated documentation to be delivered to sponsor as design package
• Anything else needed to communicate the requirements and/or your schedule

PRESENTATION

Slides are NOT submitted but should be stored in your Presentations folder on Box

1. Project Overview - 1-2 slides (project context; what does sponsor say is important; concise explanation of what your project is)
2. Project's Value Proposition - 1 slide
3. Key Requirements - 2 slides (concise list of measurable project requirements, which can include boolean requirements)
4. Individual Project Plan & Schedule - 1-2 slides (project-specific things that need to happen before the next review)
5. Anticipated documentation needed for transferability (based on coordination with sponsor) - 1 slide
   

Presentation graded 1-10 points by lead instructor

GRADING

Executive Summary (100 points)

The Executive Summary will be graded by your External Relations Manager (Allyson or Lisa). They are both experienced engineers and will expect an appropriate level of professionalism and technical detail. These are the questions they will be answering when grading your Executive Summary:

1. (20 points) Overall professionalism, grammatically correct, makes sense overall

2. (20 points) Overview

• Does the team understand what they will be doing?
• Does the team understand why they are doing it?
• Does the team understand the sponsor’s goals and what the impact of the project will be?

3. (20 points) Sponsor Needs

• Does the team demonstrate a thorough understanding of the sponsor’s needs, priorities, and desired outcomes?
• Do they really understand what this project is and why it’s important?

4. (20 points) Measurable Requirements

• Do the requirements make sense for the sponsor needs?
• Are there measurable targets as appropriate?
• Are the artifacts complete and well-presented?
• Does the discussion in the Executive Summary align with the project requirements in the artifacts?
• Are appropriate artifacts referenced and in the right order?

5. (20 points) Project Plan

• As a team (including the coach), and in conjunction with the sponsor, has a decision been made with respect to how the project will be managed? (team leader, tasks, assignments, etc.)
• Is it clear how sponsor communication will take place? (How often, method, additional details)
• Is it clear that the team has coordinated with the sponsor on desired project documentation and deliverables?
• Is the schedule for the next phase clear and complete (and most likely referenced as an artifact)?

Design Review Presentation (50 points)

Your presentation will be graded by your Pod Instructor, with input from your review coach.

1. (5 points) Overall professionalism, everyone on time and dressed professionally, slides are clean and clear

2. (5 points) Overview (1-2 slides)

• Is it clear what the team will be doing?

3. (10 points) Project Value Proposition (1 slide)

• Does the team demonstrate a thorough understanding of the sponsor’s needs, priorities, and desired outcomes?
• What action is the sponsor going to take based on the outcome?
• What decision will the sponsor make based on the project outcome?
• Does the team truly understand what this project is and why it’s important?

4. (15 points) Measurable Requirements (1-2 slides)

• Do the requirements make sense for the sponsor needs?
• Are there measurable targets that make sense for the project?
• Does the format of the requirements make sense for the project? (requirements matrix, software requirements, user stories, etc)

5. (5 points) Project Plan (1-2 slides)

• Is the team’s plan reasonable?
• Is the schedule for the next phase clear and complete?
• Has the team addressed long lead-time items appropriately?
• Has the team considered the overall two-semester schedule?

6. (10 points) Anticipated Documentation

• In consultation with the sponsor, has the team thoroughly considered the long-term documentation needs for the project?
• Does the documentation plan make sense for the project?