Articles

These are some of the articles that we have written or borrowed (with permission) on requirements and software development topics.

Atomic Requirements: where the rubber hits the road by Suzanne Robertson and James Robertson

This is the sixth article in the series that explains the thinking behind the Volere requirements techniques. This one looks at the most granular level of requirements.

World-class Business Analyst? by Tim Lister

Tim Lister sets down the skills, characteristics, and talents of the perfect business analyst.

How Now Brown Cow by Suzanne Robertson and James Robertson

This is the fifth article in a series that explains the thinking behind the Volere requirements techniques. Subsequent articles will explore various aspects of applying these techniques in your environment.

Why is Innovation so Hard? by James Robertson

It appears that innovation is hard to do. It is not, but coming up with the good ideas is the easiest part.

Provoking Creativity: Imagine What Your Requirements Could Be Like by Neil Maiden, Alexis Gizikis and Suzanne Robertson

This article was selected by IEEE Software magazine as one of the Top Picks for influential articles over the 25 years of IEEE Software.

Requirements - a socio-technical discipline   by Suzanne Robertson and James Robertson

This is the fourth article in a series that explains the thinking behind the Volere requirements techniques.

Requirements for Managing Requirements by Suzanne Robertson, Published by Cutter Consortium.

This report works through the Volere requirements knowledge model. This illustrates how some degree of formality opens the door to making choices appropriate for each individual project and leads towards the ability to reuse requirements.

From Business Event to BUC by Suzanne Robertson and James Robertson

This is the third in a series of articles on the Volere requirements techniques and explains how the business analysts translates a business need into a system scenario.

Work Scope and Product Scope: Why Both? by Suzanne Robertson and James Robertson

This is the second in a series of articles explaining the Volere requirements techniques.

Volere Requirements Techniques: an Overview by Suzanne Robertson and James Robertson

This is the first article in a series that explains the thinking behind the Volere requirements techniques. Subsequent articles will explore the practicalities of applying these techniques in your environment.

Requirements Auditing: Is the Specification Fit For its Purpose? by Suzanne Robertson

How do you know whether the requirements specification is fit for its intended purpose? How do you know whether it is a good specification?

The (Proto)type of requirements thinking at IAG by Andrew Kendall

Andrew Kendall is a senior business analyst at Insurance Australia Group, one of the largest insurance organisations in Australia. In this article Andrew discusses an approach to Volere requirements gathering.

Volere Requirements: How to Get Started by Suzanne and James Robertson

In response to many requests, we felt that it was time to produce a guide to how to make a start using the Volere approach to improving your requirements.

Stakeholders, Goals, Scope: The Foundation for Requirements and Business Models by Suzannne Robertson

This article summarises experiences in using the Stakeholder, Goal, Scope approach as well as providing some new guidelines for using a variety of business analysis models for discovering requirements.

Know Your Goals by Ian Alexander

Some requirements people talk about Goals only in the sense of 'vague, unachievable, high-level aspirations'; others seem to mean almost the same as requirements, while scenario and Use Case people say that every scenario has a Goal. So it's understandable that newcomers often get confused and avoid the whole subject. But a Goal has a definite meaning to footballers, engineers, biologists, and psychologists, and it is a meaning that is very useful in systems development.