Business Requirement Engineering

Streamlining and Expanding the Requirements Approach

A poor requirements process is the industry's single largest contributor to the need for expensive development rework. Organizations do not always view business requirements within the wider context of the software development lifecycle - unfortunately, this precludes them from taking advantage of key opportunities for efficiency and effectiveness.
Codea Technologies experience shows that in successful organizations, business requirements:

		Can be easily understood and traced
		Are well integrated with downstream architecture, design and testing activities
		Promote iterative development with improved project planning and visibility

The requirements engineering competency is dedicated to helping clients achieve these goals. We focus on refining business and technology goals into discrete functions that can be cleanly implemented, readily managed and fully traced from an end-to-end perspective. Included in our services are capabilities around definition and prioritization of business goals, identifying and analyzing end-user informational needs, and coordinating with upstream and downstream teams across the software development lifecycle.

What Makes Codea Technologies Unique within the Industry?

Our requirements engineers have an average of fifteen-plus years of industry experience and have a cross-functional view of requirements engineering. The assets we leverage and our expertise in strategy, process, technology and full project lifecycle uniquely qualify us to respond to all aspects of business requirements needs.
If you are looking for an experienced partner, then read our insight papers and contact us. Together we can plan and implement a winning solution.


Industry Challenges

Because today's systems are larger and more complex, the reliance of businesses on technology has grown. It has become necessary to scale up requirements activities. Integrated teams of business partners, end users, developers, architects and testers must operate in a coordinated fashion to ensure that the end system that is built meets business goals, addresses user needs and can be operationalized for ongoing maintenance, implemented via the organization's approved technology suite and scaled to meet anticipated growth.
The task of ensuring the seamless coordination of stakeholder groups is the responsibility of the requirements engineer. Faced with key challenges and opportunities, today's requirements engineer must possess an operating knowledge of the business strategy, an understanding of technology's capabilities, an appreciation for end user needs and deep knowledge of the full project/product delivery lifecycle. In addition, he or she must be capable of gaining the trust of all of key stakeholders to elicit meaningful input and perform a critical analysis of that input.
These responsibilities require a nuanced combination of business knowledge, deep industry experience, a keen sense of process and an engaging style. Ultimately, the requirements engineer serves as the "glue" binding the process together end-to-end with the layer of requirements necessary to bridge business needs with technology capabilities.
Organizations successful at managing requirements share the following characteristics:

Requirements Engineering Competency

Codea Technologies requirements engineering competency is made up of individuals with broad experience spanning strategic consulting, future state envisioning, tools proficiency and end-to-end requirements management.

Our commitment to delivering solutions to address industry challenges within the requirements arena has resulted in the development of the following targeted offerings:

		Business Requirements Definition – In this, our flagship offering, requirements engineers leverage our proven framework for creating business requirements documents, which are made up of four discrete components: business requirements, business rules, data elements and a traceability matrix. Clients who mature their requirements discipline through our framework are well positioned to leverage industry tools with which to facilitate the process.
		Current / Future State Requirements Assessment – Through the lens of structured business requirements, this offering provides: 1) an assessment of an organization's current state of capabilities across key dimensions (e.g., organizational, operational, process, metrics and technology), 2) a definition of future (target) state, and 3) creation of a strategic roadmap for achieving the future state.
		Business Requirements Methodology Enablement – In this offering, Codea Technologies delivers a customized version of our requirements definition methodology to the client, including the core methodology (standard operating procedure) supporting artifacts, templates and enabling documentation.
		Business Requirements Training and Adoption – To facilitate accurate and complete adoption of our methodology, this offering features formal classroom and/or computer based training (CBT) for the key business requirements stakeholder roles, including business partners, project managers, business analysts and data analysts. The training artifacts delivered are "living documents" that can be extended/repurposed to meet evolving needs. To facilitate adoption success, special focus is placed on organizational change management considerations.
		Requirements Management Vendor Selection – In this offering, Codea Technologies senior requirements consultants help identify clients' strategic requirement needs. These needs are then entered into our standard RFI/RFP vendor selection methodology to identify the most appropriate package. A key value-add is our deep knowledge of the requirements tools space, including hand-on experiences with success criteria and challenges.