10 Top Models to Effectively Analyze and Document Solution Requirements

First, what is Solution Requirements Analysis?

Requirements elicitation and analysis is the cornerstone process to analyze the business requirements and document a solution requirements package” sometimes known as SRS or DRD”.

It is iterative work to plan, prepare, and conduct the elicitation of information from stakeholders, to analyze and document the results of that work, and to eventually define a set of requirements in sufficient detail to enable the definition and selection of the preferred solution, thus, business analysts use a number of analysis models to support the analysis activities.

According to the PMI ” Project Management Institute standards, requirements is to be analyzed, decomposed, and elaborated using techniques such as dependency analysis, and data and process models in order to collaboratively uncover and clarify product options and capabilities.

Here are the top ten models:

1) Context Diagram: This model is very helpful, which enable the Business Analysts to identify the solution scope and avoid working on non-added value features and functions.

“Allows the business analyst to clearly show the boundary of the system, the users (both human and other systems), and the high-level data provided by and to the system. A context diagram is only a high-level view, but when supported by detailed data definitions, it is an excellent tool for communicating part of the project scope to stakeholders”… referring to the PMI

2) Ecosystem Map: This model will help business analysts to identify all related systems, which will facilitate defining the data entities later on and help analysts to easily determine the transition requirements

3) Process Flow: One of the challenges is to understand how work is being done to facilitate analysis and find out a detailed requirement related to the work itself.

4) Feature Model: Can you imagine that your solution features are built at a hierarchical way, yes it is the fact. Accordingly you should group your solution features in a structure that will help you understand a detailed level of features, and group them to define them later on, prioritize them, and understand features dependencies.

5) Use Case Diagram: This is a simple model that define features scope and considered as a focal point that will translate your feature into a detailed requirements.

6) Use Case Description: Use cases describe how “actors” interact with a “system” to accomplish a business goal or respond to events. Use cases contain “scenarios,” which are primary and alternate paths through the use case for accomplishing the desired goal. The use case diagram is typically easy to read and understand, and it provides a visual representation of a system by focusing on the actors who will interact with the system and their goals in the interaction.

7) Decision Tree: Often it is necessary to identify scenarios at least when defining interface requirements within the use case description. This model is important to analyze business rules, which will represents solution constraints and help business analyst to find out related requirements.

8) Entity Relationship Diagram: It is a meth that there is a business analysis solution without data structure. It is a graphical representation of the entities relevant to a chosen problem domain, the relationships between them, and their attributes.

9) Data flow Diagram: If you have a clear process flow and well identified data entities, it is now the time to determine the data flow within the work flow. DFD” Data Flow Diagram model can stand alone”. So it is an analysis model that illustrates processes that occur, along with the flows of data to and from those processes.

10) Data Dictionary: We can say that this model is the destination in most business analysis initiatives in analysis stage, most of business analysts feel that this the final step in the requirements analysis lifecycle. It is an analysis model describing the data structures and attributes needed by the system.

Now based on your experience what is the best sequence of using those models? Is there any recommendations according to best practice?