Business Analysis / Data management / Product Management / Requirements / Requirements gathering

Business Rules And Requirements – Early Thoughts

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We had a great interview with James Taylor a couple weeks ago, where we talked about his new book, Smart (Enough) Systems, co-authored with Neil Raden. James is an expert on decision management systems. I spent the late 1990s working on “rules-centric” software systems that allowed us to isolate rules […]

Business Analysis / Product Management / Requirements / Requirements gathering / Requirements management software / Requirements Models / UML Modeling

UML Statecharts and Documenting Business Rules

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In yesterday’s article we compared use cases and UML statecharts as tools for discovering business rules. James Taylor asked a question about how we would document those rules, and then followed up my comment response with an article about business rules and RUP. In this article we move the conversation slightly forward – recognizing that we’re slowly entering the ocean of business process management.

Business Analysis / Product Management / Requirements / Requirements gathering / Requirements Models / UML Modeling / Use Cases

Use Case vs. UML Statechart – Business Rules

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What is the better requirements management model for capturing business rules? The use case, or the UML statechart? In this article, we explore how customer orders are submitted and processed, and contrast how use cases and statecharts expose and document business requirements and business rules.

Business Analysis / Communication / Consulting / Requirements / Requirements gathering / Requirements Models

How To Visualize Stakeholder Analysis

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The first step of gathering requirements is to identify who can give you the requirements. Business processes include communication between different people inside the organization. Communication also includes people outside the organization. When gathering requirements, it can be easy to overlook the people who don’t use the software directly. Those people may still be stakeholders. Read on to see how to approach stakeholder analysis.

Business Analysis / Product Management / Requirements / Requirements Models

Business Requirements, Project Scope, and Coupling

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Robin Goldsmith wrote an interesting article for RQNG about business requirements – what he calls “REAL” requirements. Gathering the right requirements demands more than just effective listening skills, you have to focus on the right problem. Robin brings up a theme we’ve discussed here in the past, and again in today’s article.