Software development success starts with a journey to determine what an organization needs from a solution. The map below shows the facets of the journey in three columns:
Motivators that drive and sustain the journey
The business analysis process of capturing business needs and curating them into well-understood requirements
The process deliverables include the requirements, process maps, and user stories.
Click any icon or label to see details about a concept.
Motivated Discovery
Before embarking on the discovery journey, the business analyst or architect leader develops a curiosity about the client’s business, especially the goals, and objectives they expect the solution to meet. The leader pays close attention to what business stakeholders say. Even though the customer may not always be right, they still have a point - and they should not need to repeat it. The discovery leader always respects stakeholders at any level. His or her interest in the business goals and achieving them with the solution earns the other stakeholders’ respect and appreciation. As the discovery leader learns more about the intended solution’s goals and aligns stakeholders to the requirements of meeting the goal, they develop trust in the leader.
Discovery Journey
The business analyst or architect leader applies curiosity and attentiveness to capture the client's needs from the intended solution. The leader acknowledges each need back to the stakeholders to confirm he/she has it, whether it becomes part of the solution or not. The discovery leader curates the business needs into requirements - specific outcomes expected from the solution. They strive to understand the requirements, as shown in the next section. The leader shows their understanding of the requirements to reinforce and clarify how the solution will meet business needs.
Understanding Requirements
The discovery journey starts with the business analyst or architect leader learning terms specific to the client’s business and defining them in a shared glossary. The discovery leader verifies the terms and their relationship to each other with a concept map. As the leader learns about the client’s business processes, he/she illustrates them for the stakeholders with a process map. The discovery leader writes user stories specifying a user's role, what the user needs from the solution, and why. The leader also writes use cases for interactions with several steps or decisions. The leader follows up with stakeholders with questions about these documents. Once the technical stakeholders have a clear and complete understanding of the requirements, they can begin developing a solution that meets those requirements.