Topics

Starting a project, the first thing is to clarify what the project exactly is. Customers and providers of a project have to define and agree on a mutual understanding of the project. A possible form to document this mutual understanding is a Project Overview Statement (POS).

However, in IT projects, a detailed analysis and specification before starting a project is essential and state-of-the-art. Therefore, this module extends the contents of the textbook by three further topics:

• User requirements analysis
• Requirements specification
• System specification.

Goals

In this module you will learn

• To define project mission and objectives
• How to specify user requirements
• How to specify the targeted system

Readings

Required readings:

Textbook: Robert K. Wysocki (2009): Effective Project Management (fifth edition), Wiley Publishing

• Chapter 3

Sim D'Hertefelt (2000): 13 common objections against user requirements analysis, and why you should not believe them. InteractionArchitect.com. http://users.skynet.be/fa250900/articles/article20000609b.htm

Additional readings:

Wikipedia (2011): Requirements analysis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requirements_analysis