Essential Consulting Skill

Requirements

Requirements describe what a business or user needs, why it matters and the conditions a solution must satisfy.

Why It Matters

Use requirements to improve delivery

Clear requirements reduce assumptions, align stakeholders and give delivery teams a shared basis for design, development and testing.

Capabilities to develop

  • Discovery questions
  • Current and future-state analysis
  • Business and functional requirements
  • User stories and acceptance criteria
  • Traceability and change control
A Practical Method

How to develop requirements

  1. 1. Start with the business problem and desired outcome before discussing a solution.
  2. 2. Interview the people who do, manage and depend on the work.
  3. 3. Separate needs, constraints, assumptions and proposed features.
  4. 4. Write requirements in clear, testable language and review them with stakeholders.
  5. 5. Maintain traceability as priorities and solution decisions change.
Practise It

Build evidence, not just knowledge

Choose a familiar process such as customer onboarding. Map the current process, identify three problems, write five requirements and add acceptance criteria.

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