Software Requirements Essentials: Core Practices for Successful Business Analysis

20 Best Practices for Developing and Managing Requirements on Any Project

Software Requirements Essentials presents 20 core practices for successful requirements planning, elicitation, analysis, specification, validation, and management. Leading requirements experts Karl Wiegers and Candase Hokanson focus on the practices most likely to deliver superior value for both traditional and agile projects, in any application domain. These core practices help teams understand business problems, engage the right participants, articulate better solutions, improve communication, implement the most valuable functionality in the right sequence, and adapt to change and growth.

Concise and tightly focused, this book offers just enough pragmatic "how-to" detail for you to apply the core practices with confidence, whether you're a business analyst, requirements engineer, product manager, product owner, or developer. Using it, your entire team can build a shared understanding of key concepts, terminology, techniques, and rationales--and work together more effectively on every project.

Learn how to:

• Clarify problems, define business objectives, and set solution boundaries
• Identify stakeholders and decision makers
• Explore user tasks, events, and responses
• Assess data concepts and relationships
• Elicit and evaluate quality attributes
• Analyze requirements and requirement sets, create models and prototypes, and set priorities
• Specify requirements in a consistent, structured, well-documented fashion
• Review, test, and manage change to requirements

"I once read the ten best-selling requirements engineering books of the prior ten years. This one book succinctly presents more useful information than those ten books combined."
--Mike Cohn, author of User Stories Applied and co-founder, Scrum Alliance

"Diamonds come about when a huge amount of carbon atoms are compressed. Karl and Candase have done something very similar: they have compressed their vast requirements knowledge into 20 gems they call 'core practices.' These practices are potent stuff, and I recommend that they become part of everyone's requirements arsenal."
--James Robertson, author of Mastering the Requirements Process and Business Analysis Agility

"Long story short: if you are going to read only one requirements book, this is it. Software Requirements Essentials distills the wealth of information found in Software Requirements and many other texts down to twenty of the most important requirements activities that apply on nearly all projects. Today's busy BA simply doesn't have the time to read a lengthy instructive guide front-to-back. But they should find the time to read this book."
--From the Foreword by Joy Beatty, COO, ArgonDigital

"Software Requirements Essentials will be a high-value addition to your business analysis library. Anyone looking to improve their business analysis practices will find great practical advice they'll be able to apply immediately."
--Laura Paton, Principal Consultant, BA Academy, Inc.

《軟體需求精要》提供了20個成功的需求規劃、引出、分析、規格、驗證和管理的核心實踐。需求專家Karl Wiegers和Candase Hokanson專注於最有可能為傳統和敏捷專案以及任何應用領域提供卓越價值的實踐。這些核心實踐幫助團隊了解業務問題，吸引合適的參與者，提出更好的解決方案，改善溝通，按照正確的順序實施最有價值的功能，並適應變化和成長。

這本書簡潔而專注，提供了足夠的實用細節，讓您能夠自信地應用核心實踐，無論您是業務分析師、需求工程師、產品經理、產品擁有者還是開發人員。使用這本書，您的整個團隊可以建立對關鍵概念、術語、技術和原理的共同理解，並在每個專案上更有效地合作。

學習如何：
- 澄清問題，定義業務目標，並設定解決方案範圍
- 確定利益相關者和決策者
- 探索使用者任務、事件和回應
- 評估數據概念和關係
- 引出並評估品質屬性
- 分析需求和需求集，創建模型和原型，並設定優先順序
- 以一致、結構化、有良好文檔的方式規定需求
- 審查、測試和管理需求變更

"我曾經閱讀過過去十年中最暢銷的十本需求工程書籍。這本書簡明扼要地呈現了比那十本書結合起來更有用的信息。" - Mike Cohn，《User Stories Applied》作者，Scrum Alliance聯合創始人

"鑽石是由大量碳原子壓縮而成的。Karl和Candase做了一件非常相似的事情：他們將他們豐富的需求知識壓縮成了20顆他們稱之為'核心實踐'的寶石。這些實踐是強大的東西，我建議它們成為每個人需求工具箱的一部分。" - James Robertson，《Mastering the Requirements Process》和《Business Analysis Agility》作者

"簡而言之：如果您只打算閱讀一本需求書，那就是這本。《軟體需求精要》將《軟體需求》和其他許多書中的豐富信息壓縮成了20個幾乎適用於所有專案的最重要的需求活動。現在忙碌的業務分析師沒有時間從頭到尾閱讀冗長的指南。但他們應該找時間閱讀這本書。" - Joy Beatty，《ArgonDigital》首席運營官

"《軟體需求精要》將成為您業務分析圖書館中的寶貴資源。任何希望改進其業務分析實踐的人都會找到實用的建議，他們將能夠立即應用。" - Laura Paton，《BA Academy, Inc.》首席顧問

Karl Wiegers is Principal Consultant with Process Impact, a software development consulting and training company in Happy Valley, Oregon. Previously, he spent eighteen years at Kodak, where he held positions as a photographic research scientist, software developer, software manager, and software process and quality improvement leader. Karl received a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Illinois. Karl is the author of thirteen previous books and has written many articles on software development, management, design, consulting, chemistry, and military history. Karl has served on the editorial board for IEEE Software magazine and as a contributing editor for Software Development magazine. He is the author of Software Development Pearls (Addison-Wesley, 2022).

Candase Hokanson is a Business Architect and PMI-Agile Certified Practitioner at ArgonDigital, a software development, professional services, and training company based in Austin, Texas. Candase graduated from Rice University with a BS and MS in civil engineering and a BA in religious studies. She is an active member of the product and business analysis communities, previously serving as a co-chair for the Keep Austin Agile conference in 2019 and president of the Austin IIBA. She has authored multiple articles on using visual models in agile, requirements in agile, and agile in the large enterprise.

Karl Wiegers是Process Impact的首席顧問，該公司是位於俄勒岡州快樂谷的軟體開發諮詢和培訓公司。在此之前，他在柯達公司工作了十八年，擔任過攝影研究科學家、軟體開發人員、軟體經理以及軟體流程和品質改進領導職位。Karl在伊利諾伊大學獲得有機化學博士學位。他是十三本先前書籍的作者，並且撰寫了許多關於軟體開發、管理、設計、諮詢、化學和軍事歷史的文章。Karl曾擔任IEEE Software雜誌的編輯委員會成員，並擔任Software Development雜誌的撰稿編輯。他是《Software Development Pearls》（Addison-Wesley，2022年）的作者。

Candase Hokanson是ArgonDigital的業務架構師和PMI-Agile認證從業者，ArgonDigital是一家位於德克薩斯州奧斯汀的軟體開發、專業服務和培訓公司。Candase畢業於萊斯大學，獲得土木工程學士和碩士學位以及宗教研究學士學位。她是產品和業務分析社群的活躍成員，曾在2019年擔任Keep Austin Agile會議的聯合主席，並擔任奧斯汀IIBA的主席。她撰寫了多篇關於在敏捷開發中使用視覺模型、敏捷需求和大型企業中的敏捷的文章。