MSF Requirements

• Envisioning Phase

• Planning Phase

Envisioning Phase - Goals

• Identify the business problem or opportunity being addressed.

• Identify the specific issues and problems that will determine the most appropriate and effective solution for your organization.

• Complete tasks and deliverables that will help it define the business requirements, shopper and overall goals of the project.

• Culminates in the vision/scope approved milestone, indicating team and customer agreement on the direction of the project.

Envisioning Phase - Tasks

• Setting up a team.• Defining the business goals.• Assessing the current situation.• Creating the vision and defining the scope for the project.• Profiling user requirements• Developing the solution concept• Assessing Risk• Defining the project structure• Complete the Vision/Scope and Risk Assessment

documents

Vision Statement

• Establishes a long-term vision to address the problem statements and achieve the business goals.

• Typically only a paragraph or two in length.• Not bound by the actual work the team expects to

perform as part of the current project.• Should balance competing interests to provide a

vision that can be shared among team members and provide context for future decision making.

Sample Web Site Objectives

• To attract and retain customers. • To perform quickly and reliably and be available

24 hours a day. • To enable customers to navigate quickly and

easily to products using a minimum number of mouse clicks.

• To provide a catalog of site products that is easy to manage and update.

• To make customers feel secure about their online transactions.

Sample Vision Statement

Build an online retail store that will take us into new product lines and markets.

Scope

• Defines what will or will not be included in a project.

• Takes the overall project vision expressed in the vision statement and incorporates the constraints imposed on the project by resources, time, and other limiting factors.

• Time to market becomes a key factor in defining project scope for this example.

Defining Requirements

This process begins with defining the overall set of functional requirements and features that should be considered for the project.

E-commerce Example Wish List

• Catalog requirements - Catalog navigation, Search, Products, Cross sells, Product discounts, Product promotions, Sales volume points, Shopping, Pricing

• Operations requirements – Fulfillment, Inventory, Payment, Shipping, Tax, Merchandise returns, Cancellations, Sales volume points, Offline processing

• Membership requirements – Profile, Status, Type, Contracts, Security

• Administration requirements – Membership, Operations, Catalog

• Reporting requirements – Membership, Operations

Refining Requirements

Once the set of all potential requirements is defined, a project team will narrow the complete list of features to a number considered essential.

Example Refined Requirements

• Shoppers can search the site to quickly find items by using key words and phrases.

• Shoppers can select a detailed description of each product for sale.

• Products can be added to shoppers’ individual shopping baskets.

• Shoppers can choose from a range of shipping options.

• Shoppers can choose from a range of payment options.

Versioned Releases

• Help the project team respond to ongoing changes in scope, schedule, and project risk.

• Provide the opportunity to make changes in response to feedback from earlier releases.

• First release delivers core functionality to users.

• Subsequent releases add functionality that meets customer needs.

Profiling Users

The purpose of the user profiles is to outline who the solution’s users are and what their relationship to the solution will be.

E-commerce Example Users

• Shoppers

• Internal Staff

Categories of Shoppers

• Individual

• Casual Users

• Registered Users

• Corporate

Shopper Functions

• Ability to search with natural language

• Privacy of personal data

• Ability to select items without having to register until ready for checkout

• Ability to save cart to purchase at later date

• Choice of using separate billing and shipping addresses

Internal Staff Users

• Content creators

• Product and catalog staff

• Personnel involved in promotional offerings, cross- and up-selling features, and so forth

• Administrative personnel charged with ensuring availability and performance of the e-commerce solution

• Other system applications present in the e-commerce corporate environment that effectively are “users” of this e-commerce solution through some required interaction, such as fulfillment, inventory, accounting, and so forth

Internal Staff Functions

• Maintaining product catalogs • Maintaining product pricing, promotions, cross- and up-selling • Handling customer service requests • Obtaining commerce service requests • Obtaining commerce data for analysis and integration with

other systems • Creating and deploying new site content • Administering “frequent flyer”-type programs • Handling service outages and performing test and metrics

gathering • Change and configuration management personnel and processes

Vision Document Outline

• Problem Statement

• Vision Statement

• User Profiles

• Business Goals

• Solution Concept

• Design Goals

Planning Phase

The planning phase is the period of time when the team defines the solution: what to build, how to build it, and who will build it.

Planning Phase Tasks

• Developing the site design and architecture • Creating the functional specification for the

e-commerce site • Developing project plans • Creating project schedules • Creating the development, testing, staging,

and production environments • Closing the planning phase

Functional Specification

• Describes requirements or features that are part of the solution.

• Represents the contract between the customer and the project team.

• Basis for building project plans and schedules.

Functional Specification Includes

• A summary of the vision/scope document as agreed upon and refined, including background information to place the solution in a business context

• Any additional customer requirements beyond those already identified in the vision/scope document

• The solution design • Specifications of the components that will be part of

the solution, like the shopping basket, catalog, and search capabilities

Functional Specification Should Include

• Features

• Security Requirements

• Relevant Transaction Requirements

• Legal Requirements

• Risk Analysis Documents

Functional Specification Should NOT Include

• Details of software architecture

• Detailed database schema

• Details about programming languages

E-commerce Example Storefront Features

• Shopping basket management

• Hierarchical product/category mapping

• Rich product catalog search

• “Hot” deals

• Full online order history support

• Registration and user profile maintenance

• Checkout and order processing

E-commerce Example Storefront Management Features

• Shopper Management

• Catalog Management

• Promotion Management

• Ad Management

• Order processing pipeline integration

Conceptual Model

• Depicts what functionality will be present

• Illustrates the use of the user interface elements

• Storyboards are an important tool for documenting conceptual model

Example Conceptual Model - Flow

Example Conceptual Model - Home

Example Conceptual Model – Shopping Basket

Example Conceptual Model - Categories

Function Specification Outline

• Project Vision and Scope

• Conceptual Model (Actors, Subsystems)

• Use Cases

• Deliverables

• Requirements

Questions?