Requirements Elicitation And Facilitation Course

Course Code: IN 428
Course Abstract: This course teaches participants how to elicit, analyze, and communicate requirements for software development projects. Many elicitation techniques rely upon the collaborative work of individuals with diverse backgrounds. Participants learn and apply facilitation skills and strategies to get the most out of collaborative requirements definition sessions. Labs allow participants to practice and refine elicitation techniques and facilitation skills in groups of various sizes. All labs simulate typical and difficult software requirements situations and issues. Participants will apply their acquired skills by facilitating sessions for developing a vision, use case modeling, and drafting and reviewing use case specifications. Participants receive instructor and peer feedback throughout the course. This enhances participants’ listening skills and provides constructive feedback.
Audience: This course is designed for participants who want to improve their requirements elicitation and facilitation skills, especially for conducting use case sessions. These roles include: Business Analyst, Systems Analyst, Project Manager, Team Leader, and Software Architect.
Duration: 3 days
Learning Outcomes:

Upon completion of this course, the participant will be able to:
> Provide participants with the essential skills to effectively elicit and refine requirements
> Learn and apply facilitation skills for use case and other requirements sessions
> Assess and improve listening skills
> Increase awareness of what assists and inhibits clear communication
> Recognize the essentials of effective meetings and group dynamics
> Select and plan different types of meetings used with a use case driven requirements process
> Design meeting agendas and select effective techniques to accomplish goals
> Select and apply elicitation techniques appropriate to the project’s circumstances
> Practice facilitation techniques in mock use case sessions
> Accept constructive feedback
> Improve skills based upon feedback

Course Topics:

Introduction
Establishing baseline skills
Lab 1: Participants demonstrate their current requirements and meeting skills

Communicating effectively
Costs of unsuccessful communication and meetings in software development
Effective communication (listening, verbal and non-verbal cues, constructive feedback)
Effective meetings have structure
Quick tips to improve collaborative working sessions
Facilitator’s role in effective communication
Lab 2: Apply pointers during continuation of Lab 1 meeting

Eliciting requirements
Elicitation challenges
Elicitation techniques
Review existing documentation
Industry analysis
Usability benchmarking
Business process modeling
Root cause analysis
Lab 3: Root cause analysis
Questionnaires and surveys
Identify constraints
Interviews
Lab 4: Prepare for and conduct an interview
Contextual inquiry
Prototypes

Generating ideas and making decisions
Brainstorming techniques
Lab 5: Brainstorm using two different techniques
Organizing and clarifying ideas
Lab 6: Organize ideas
Setting requirement priorities and making decisions
Negotiation and conflict resolution within the group
Lab 7: Make decisions

Planning effective meetings
Roles: facilitator, scribe, timekeeper, participants, observers
General principles for all meeting types
Meeting types
Information sharing
Problem solving
Decision making
Planning
Feedback
Workshops (combining elicitation techniques and meeting types)
Developing agendas
Lab 8: Plan requirements meetings and develop an agenda

Conducting effective meetings
Principles for effective collaborative work
Actions that encourage practicing each principle
Actions that prevent practicing each principle and how to correct them
Starting the meeting
Applying effective collaboration skills
Following-up after the meeting
Lab 9: Maintaining focus and managing group dynamics

Applying techniques to requirement sessions
Lab 10: Plan requirement sessions
Meeting types and techniques related to requirements
Lab 11: Facilitating vision development
Lab 12: Facilitating the development of a use case model
Lab 13: Facilitating the development of use case specifications
Lab 14: Conducting reviews
Course summary

Prerequisites: Unified Process Overview and use case experience or use case development course.
Note: All fields are required
At the present time we do not offer training for individuals or groups less then 6 individuals. We apologize for any inconvenience.
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