This article contains most of the important information you need to know about Collect Requirements process in order to answer questions related to this topic in the PMP Exam, I recommend you review this type of articles 1 week before your exam date, all information mentioned are based on PMBOK Guide 6th edition and PMP Exam Prep 9th edition for Rita Maclhy’s, ITTO refers to Inputs, Tools & Techniques and outputs.
This process is a part of Planning Process group and Scope Management Knowledge Area with the following ITTO’s
Inputs:
- Project charter
- Project Management Plan ( Scope & Requirements management plan , Stakeholder engagement plan )
- Project Documents ( Assumption log , lessons learned register , stakeholder register )
- Business documents ( Business case )
- Agreements
- Enterprise environmental factors
- Organizational process assets
Tools & Techniques:
- Expert Judgement
- Data Gathering ( Interviews , Focus Groups , Facilitated Workshops Brainstorming , Surveys and benchmarking )
- Data Analysis ( Document Analysis )
- Decision making ( Voting , Multicriteria decision analysis )
- Group Creativity Techniques
- Group Decision Making Techniques
- Observations
- Surveys
- Prototypes
- Benchmarking
- Context Diagram
- Document Analysis
Outputs:
- Requirements Documentation
- Requirements Tractability matrix
- Requirements are what stakeholders needs from a project , here are the main types of requirements
- Business Requirement: Support Business objectives of the company
- Stakeholder requirements.
- Solution Requirements: Functional ( Product behavior ) and non-functional ( reliability, security … )
- Transitional Requirements: temporary requirements including trainings, tracking.
- Quality Requirements: Quality criteria defined by stakeholders.
- All requirements should be evaluated against :
- Project Business Case.
- Project Charter.
- Project Scope of statement.
- Project Constraints.
- Collect Requirements Process Tools and Techniques :
- Review historical Records: Looking on previous similar projects.
- Interviews: Expert interviews, meeting key stakeholders to collect requirements.
- Focus Groups: Meeting a specific set of stakeholders to collect requirements for an aspect of the project.
- Facilitated Workshops: group of stakeholders from different perspectives which results in user stories like “As a – Role- , I want a –Goal- , So that “business case” .
- Brainstorming, main reason is not only to collect ideas but to encourage participants to build on each other idea.
- Nominal Group techniques which includes ranking of useful ideas.
- Multi criteria decision analysis , quantify requirements through decision matrix based on factors like risk ,schedule ,cost…
- Mind Maps , Diagram ideas to help generate , classify or record information , several trees radiating from central core.
- Affinity Diagram , Requirements divided upon similarities , each is given a title.
- Surveys , used for large groups and projects.
- Prototype , Model of proposed product.
- Bench marking , looking at what competitors doing, It consumes time and cost , it limits group creativity.
- Observation , includes job shadowing , watching potential used of the product at work.
- Context Diagram , diagrams that shows input , source and output to show how people interact with the system.
- Analytic Hierarchy process , for complex decisions give different weights to factors to build hierarchy then voting is accomplished.
- Group Decision making ,
- Dictatorship
- Majority technique , above 505 agreement
- Plurality technique , Biggest percentage agree
- Consensus technique , generates agrrement
- Delphi technique , From remote locations experts gives their opinion , it is executed several times until agreement is obtained.
- Voice of customer ( VOC ) , translates customer needs into requirements
- Collect requirements process have 2 major outputs :
- Requirements Tractability Matrix, tracks requirements from origin to deliverables , it links each requirement to the objective , requirement attributes should be documented and to include source, status , identification … all necessary details .
- Requirements Documentation , Document all stakeholders requirements along with acceptance criteria of each .