Techniques for requirements review

[Claudiu]

I have tried to put all that I have found on a single page. A sketchnote page.

How does it look? any feedback?

The story behind it…
Some time ago I wanted to learn more about how to read and analyze specifications. I did not though it would bring me to this.

It all started with the first page of Good search results for “how to analyze requirements”. A couple of hours later, after using different search terms (analyze requirements, review specifications… and so on…) and reaching the 7th search result page I was disappointed. Nothing that I could use tomorrow. A lot of what to do but not how to do it. It is easy to say review the requirements for consistency but it seems there is no technique for doing it. There is no how. I wanted to know the how.

I have seen some light on the Wikipedia page for Requirements analyses “Requirements analysis can be a long and tiring process during which many delicate psychological skills are involved.” And so my quest went into the psychological area began.
I found lots of interesting stuff that sometimes I felt but I was unable to define or state. Things like: the difference between knowledge and understanding, how important it is to take breaks and to know what kind of activities relax your mind, I found about spaced repetition and active recall, about chucking and how mnemonics work, about how to take notes, about dual coding, about the hermeneutic circle (what I do not know yet is why a circle is involved), about double and single loop learning, about cubing and the investigative reporter question ( Who, What, When, Where, Why, How?) and lots and lots of other stuff.

I wanted to share what I have found. I felt it is useful information about how to improve my skills in regards to reviewing requirements and other might benefit from it also. Another power point? I wanted something else. I remembered coming upon a fact that seemed strange at the beginning: lots of people expect others to teach them but are not aware that only they are the ones that can do the learning. Regardless of what presentation or class you attend the learning has to be done by you. No one can learn for you. At the best they can show you stuff, teach you. But the learning is only done by you. So I decided that I will also point out what activities can be done by anyone if they would want to improve certain aspects or techniques in regards to how they review specification.

But how to present it was still a big question. My research also lead through the beautiful realm of sketchnoting and dual coding (you can easily remember if there is text and a representative image beside it). I am very bad at drawing but decided to do the “presentation” as a sketchnote. The idea that people could leave after the presentation with a piece of paper that summarizes the knowledge and also a list of things that they can do is, from my perspective the best approach for this.

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