MSF Requirements
• Envisioning Phase
• Planning Phase
Envisioning Phase - Goals
• Identify the business problem or opportunity being
addressed.
• Identify the specific issues and problems that will
determine the most appropriate and effective
solution for your organization.
• Complete tasks and deliverables that will help it
define the business requirements, shopper and
overall goals of the project.
• Culminates in the vision/scope approved
milestone, indicating team and customer
agreement on the direction of the project.
Envisioning Phase - Tasks
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Setting up a team.
Defining the business goals.
Assessing the current situation.
Creating the vision and defining the scope for the project.
Profiling user requirements
Developing the solution concept
Assessing Risk
Defining the project structure
Complete the Vision/Scope and Risk Assessment
documents
Vision Statement
• Establishes a long-term vision to address the
problem statements and achieve the business
goals.
• Typically only a paragraph or two in length.
• Not bound by the actual work the team expects to
perform as part of the current project.
• Should balance competing interests to provide a
vision that can be shared among team members
and provide context for future decision making.
Sample Web Site Objectives
• To attract and retain customers.
• To perform quickly and reliably and be available
24 hours a day.
• To enable customers to navigate quickly and easily
to products using a minimum number of mouse
clicks.
• To provide a catalog of site products that is easy to
manage and update.
• To make customers feel secure about their online
transactions.
Sample Vision Statement
Build an online retail store that will take us
into new product lines and markets.
Scope
• Defines what will or will not be included in
a project.
• Takes the overall project vision expressed in
the vision statement and incorporates the
constraints imposed on the project by
resources, time, and other limiting factors.
• Time to market becomes a key factor in
defining project scope for this example.
Defining Requirements
This process begins with defining the overall
set of functional requirements and features
that should be considered for the project.
E-commerce Example Wish List
• Catalog requirements - Catalog navigation, Search,
Products, Cross sells, Product discounts, Product
promotions, Sales volume points, Shopping, Pricing
• Operations requirements – Fulfillment, Inventory,
Payment, Shipping, Tax, Merchandise returns,
Cancellations, Sales volume points, Offline processing
• Membership requirements – Profile, Status, Type,
Contracts, Security
• Administration requirements – Membership, Operations,
Catalog
• Reporting requirements – Membership, Operations
Refining Requirements
Once the set of all potential requirements is
defined, a project team will narrow the
complete list of features to a number
considered essential.
Example Refined Requirements
• Shoppers can search the site to quickly find items
by using key words and phrases.
• Shoppers can select a detailed description of each
product for sale.
• Products can be added to shoppers’ individual
shopping baskets.
• Shoppers can choose from a range of shipping
options.
• Shoppers can choose from a range of payment
options.
Versioned Releases
• Help the project team respond to ongoing
changes in scope, schedule, and project risk.
• Provide the opportunity to make changes in
response to feedback from earlier releases.
• First release delivers core functionality to
users.
• Subsequent releases add functionality that
meets customer needs.
Profiling Users
The purpose of the user profiles is to outline
who the solution’s users are and what their
relationship to the solution will be.
E-commerce Example Users
• Shoppers
• Internal Staff
Categories of Shoppers
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Individual
Casual Users
Registered Users
Corporate
Shopper Functions
• Ability to search with natural language
• Privacy of personal data
• Ability to select items without having to
register until ready for checkout
• Ability to save cart to purchase at later date
• Choice of using separate billing and
shipping addresses
Internal Staff Users
• Content creators
• Product and catalog staff
• Personnel involved in promotional offerings, cross- and
up-selling features, and so forth
• Administrative personnel charged with ensuring
availability and performance of the e-commerce solution
• Other system applications present in the e-commerce
corporate environment that effectively are “users” of this
e-commerce solution through some required interaction,
such as fulfillment, inventory, accounting, and so forth
Internal Staff Functions
• Maintaining product catalogs
• Maintaining product pricing, promotions, cross- and upselling
• Handling customer service requests
• Obtaining commerce service requests
• Obtaining commerce data for analysis and integration with
other systems
• Creating and deploying new site content
• Administering “frequent flyer”-type programs
• Handling service outages and performing test and metrics
gathering
• Change and configuration management personnel and
processes
Vision Document Outline
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Problem Statement
Vision Statement
User Profiles
Business Goals
Solution Concept
Design Goals
Planning Phase
The planning phase is the period of time
when the team defines the solution: what to
build, how to build it, and who will build it.
Planning Phase Tasks
• Developing the site design and architecture
• Creating the functional specification for the
e-commerce site
• Developing project plans
• Creating project schedules
• Creating the development, testing, staging,
and production environments
• Closing the planning phase
Functional Specification
• Describes requirements or features that are
part of the solution.
• Represents the contract between the
customer and the project team.
• Basis for building project plans and
schedules.
Functional Specification Includes
• A summary of the vision/scope document as
agreed upon and refined, including background
information to place the solution in a business
context
• Any additional customer requirements beyond
those already identified in the vision/scope
document
• The solution design
• Specifications of the components that will be part
of the solution, like the shopping basket, catalog,
and search capabilities
Functional Specification Should Include
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Features
Security Requirements
Relevant Transaction Requirements
Legal Requirements
Risk Analysis Documents
Functional Specification Should NOT Include
• Details of software architecture
• Detailed database schema
• Details about programming languages
E-commerce Example Storefront Features
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Shopping basket management
Hierarchical product/category mapping
Rich product catalog search
“Hot” deals
Full online order history support
Registration and user profile maintenance
Checkout and order processing
E-commerce Example Storefront
Management Features
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Shopper Management
Catalog Management
Promotion Management
Ad Management
Order processing pipeline integration
Conceptual Model
• Depicts what functionality will be present
• Illustrates the use of the user interface
elements
• Storyboards are an important tool for
documenting conceptual model
Example Conceptual Model - Flow
Example Conceptual Model - Home
Example Conceptual Model –
Shopping Basket
Example Conceptual Model Categories
Function Specification Outline
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Project Vision and Scope
Conceptual Model (Actors, Subsystems)
Use Cases
Deliverables
Requirements
Questions?