Requirements Capture and Definition

One of the reasons often given for the failure of an IT system is the lack of, or misunderstanding of the underlying requirements from which the IT system was developed.

Requirements are the foundation of any successful IT project and how an organisation elicits, manages and monitors your requirements will be crucial to the success of your IT projects.

Oakleigh's approach to requirements capture and definition is:

Take a collaborative, inclusive approach where the sponsor (business), the developer (IT) and user (customer) ideally are totally involved in the process.
Put business value against each of the requirements such that priorities can be determined for the ongoing development of the systems.
Consider how the proposed system is going be tested, what are the success criteria should be determined during this phase
Put processes in place to manage any changes in requirements, new requirements or obsolete. This process must always be driven by business value.

Overriding all these good principles is the understanding that a 'one size fits all' process for capturing requirements and defining them is not sensible. Hence, Oakleigh tailor their approach to one that is the most suitable based on factors such as:

Culture of the organisation and team
Current development process used
Envisaged project size and complexity
Level of current understanding of the requirements

The ultimate objective for this work is that the sponsor can feel confident that at any point in time

Known requirements are captured, well defined and under change control
The developer has understanding of what is required in a suitable format
The user is certain that what is being delivered will be suitable for them.

How can Oakleigh help?

Oakleigh helps its clients by providing:

Advice on running requirements gathering exercises gained from being involved in many requirements gathering and definition exercises in various sectors.
Expertise in a variety of requirements captures methodologies. For example, use case based, scenario based, or stories based.
Consultants to lead requirements capture and definition exercises.

Supporting Clients

Enabled a utilities company to fully understand the requirements for the integration of a recently bought company in to their organisation.
Conducted a requirements gathering exercise for an educational establishment who were looking to procure a student information system.

"Oakleigh Consultancy became the preferred choice for the College. It is a choice that the College feels fully justified with as the quality of work produced has been to a high professional standard. Two examples of where we have used Oakleigh are:

Requirements Gathering
Marking the responses to the ITT

Both pieces of work were conducted on time, to cost and to a high standard. What is more revealing, however, is the feedback from those involved in the requirements gathering work. Without exception, there was unanimous praise for how the sessions were conducted and the requirements elicited. This was amply born out by the subsequent review of the requirements from staff, College wide. Their experience brought to bear on a critical part of the procurement process was a decisive factor in producing a comprehensive Statement of Requirements."

Student Information System Project Manager, Queens Mary University London.