The purpose of the requirement analysis is to create a general outline of the project's operation, establish an action plan through which the project will be implemented, and, if possible, identify the tools to be used. There is no simple recipe for requirement analysis.
The requirement analysis is included in the planning process, which, in turn, should be as follows:
The requirement analysis covers the first three points of the planning process.
At this stage, we should ask ourselves some basic questions:
For sure, at this point, we are already aware of what we are striving for, and the project idea has long been presented and thought through, but it is worth thinking about it deeper. Perhaps, we will discover new issues that are worth explaining. The following issues may be helpful here:
Now, the time has come to establish a list of requirements set for the project. In addition to functional requirements, we specify those not related to functionalities: usability, responsiveness, speed, performance, and security.
Let us check if each of the requirements meets the following criteria:
It is worth creating a simple visualization of the project's operation here. Nothing helps to fully understand the idea of the project like drawing a basic flow or simply writing on the board in points what is to happen in turn. In the case of an application with a user interface, the ideal situation is to have even the simplest mockups.
Just like when building a house, IT projects should start from scratch at the beginning and then turn to what you need most. At the beginning, therefore, on the basis of the list of requirements, it is necessary to specify a list of all possible functions that a given project will perform and then agree on which of them have the highest priority and are to be carried out as soon as possible and which are of the "nice-to-have" type.
The result of the entire project visualization stage should be a general picture of how the project should work whether through mockups or the drawn flow of activities. We should also receive a list of all possible functions that a given project is to fulfill and also know what priority each of them has.
Project visualization is a key moment during the requirement analysis. It helps in thoroughly understanding the essence of the problem, and the better the materials illustrating the problem, the more efficient the next stages of planning.
At this stage, we already determine how we imagine the operation of the project as a whole. It is good to have a few ideas for implementation, think and discuss each of them, and highlight their weaknesses and strengths. It is also worth drawing a chosen idea in detail here, if not all.
This stage is also time to consider purely technological issues not only in what language or framework will the project be written but also what additional tools will we need, for example, do we decide to use the AWS stack or maybe something else. If we are hesitating between some technologies or have no idea what to use, then it is worth shifting such a decision in time and delegating to a research task. Certainly, we can only do this if further planning is not blocked by such research. Otherwise, we can safely attach them to the tasks in the sprint.
Once we have established the project plan, we proceed to define the main tasks, which will then be discussed in detail and broken down into smaller tasks by the development team when planning a new sprint. It is important to describe each task as accurately as possible.
As mentioned earlier, the requirement analysis process will vary depending on the complexity of the project. There are easier and more difficult problems, and there are also those that have already been solved by someone and are completely new ones that you need to stop for longer. Regardless, there are some important tips to keep in mind:
The above aspects are always worth remembering when analyzing the requirements, and then it will run smoothly and will be the basis of a well-planned project.
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