How do you use document analysis and business rules analysis to elicit requirements from existing sources?

1 What is document analysis?

Document analysis is the systematic review and evaluation of documents that are relevant to the project or problem domain. It can help you to identify the current state, the desired state, the gaps, the constraints, and the assumptions of the stakeholders. Document analysis can also provide you with valuable information about the business context, the terminology, the data, the processes, and the rules that govern the domain.

2 How to conduct document analysis?

To conduct document analysis, you need to identify sources of documents that can provide useful information for your project, such as internal documents like policies and external documents like regulations. After selecting the relevant documents, you should analyze them using techniques such as reading, highlighting, summarizing, comparing, or annotating. Additionally, you should extract the requirements from the documents and document them in a standard format. Finally, you should validate the requirements with the stakeholders and resolve any conflicts, ambiguities, or inconsistencies.

3 What is business rules analysis?

Business rules analysis is the identification, documentation, and validation of the rules that define the logic, constraints, and decisions of the business domain. It can help you to understand the rationale, the conditions, and the outcomes of the business operations. Business rules analysis can also help you to ensure the compliance, consistency, and quality of the business processes and data.

4 How to conduct business rules analysis?

Conducting business rules analysis requires several steps, such as identifying sources of business rules, selecting relevant rules, analyzing them using various techniques, extracting and documenting the rules in a standard format, and validating them with stakeholders. Sources of business rules can include documents, such as policies or standards, or systems, such as legacy systems or applications. You can use criteria like scope or type to filter the business rules. Tools like spreadsheets or diagrams can help organize and visualize the rules. Models like business rules models or state diagrams can be used to represent the rules visually. Techniques like interviews or surveys can be used to confirm and prioritize the rules.

5 What are the benefits of document analysis and business rules analysis?

Document analysis and business rules analysis can offer many advantages, such as saving time and resources by reusing existing information, improving the quality of requirements, enhancing communication with stakeholders, reducing risks and errors, and supporting traceability and change management. These benefits can be achieved by capturing explicit and implicit knowledge of the domain, using common language and terminology, ensuring alignment with the business context and objectives, and maintaining a clear documentation of the sources and rules.

6 How to combine document analysis and business rules analysis?

Document analysis and business rules analysis are complementary techniques that can be used together to elicit requirements from existing sources. Combining the two involves using document analysis to identify the sources of business rules and provide background and context, while business rules analysis extracts the rules and provides logic and details. Document analysis can also be used to verify and validate the business rules, as well as identify gaps and changes in the requirements. Meanwhile, business rules analysis can be used to verify and validate documents, as well as determine impacts and consequences of changes.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?