Application Visioning

Definition

Application Visioning

the requirements engineering task during which the customer organization’s vision of an application is produced and documented

Classification

As illustrated in the preceding figure, Application Visioning is part of the following inheritance hierarchy:

• Type: Abstract
• Superclass: Visioning
• Subclasses: None

Responsibilities

The typical responsibilities of Application Visioning are to:

• Form a consensus regarding the customer organization’s vision of an application among its stakeholders.
• Determine and document an application’s:
  • Definition Mission
  • Business Problems and Opportunities
  • Major Stakeholder Needs
  • Business, Functional, Data, and Quality Goals
  • Constraints
• Lay a foundation on which the requirements of an application can be built.

Preconditions

Application visioning can typically begin when the following preconditions hold:

• The initiation phase has begun.
• The requirements team is staffed and adequately trained in application visioning.
• Customer representatives, marketing representatives, user representatives, and business domain experts (e.g., industry analysts) are available to work with the requirements team to establish the application’ mission, feature set, and goals.

Completion Criteria

Application visioning is typically complete when the following postconditions hold:

• The application vision statement has been completed, evaluated, and approved by the authorized customer representative.

Steps

Application visioning typically involves the requirements team performing the following steps in an iterative, incremental, and parallel manner:

• Read and understand the relevant documentation:
  • Contract
  • Statement Of Work
  • Business Vision Statement
  • Customer Analysis
  • Market Analysis
  • Technology Analysis
  • User Analysis
• Identify and interview major stakeholders:
  • Customer Representatives
  • Marketing Representatives
  • User Representatives
  • Business Domain Experts (e.g., industry analysts)
• Produce a formal definition of the application.
• Determine and document the mission of the application.
• Determine and document the business problems the application is intended to solve and the business opportunities that the application is intended to take advantage of.
• Determine and document the needs of the major stakeholders.
• Determine and document the overall goals of the application:
  • Business Goals
  • Functional Goals (a.k.a., desired feature set)
  • Data Goals
  • Quality Goals
• Determine and document the top-level constraints on the application:
  • Business Rules
  • Business Constraints
  • Data, Hardware, and Software Constraints
  • Industry Standards
  • Legal and Regulatory Constraints

Techniques

Application visioning can typically be performed using the following techniques:

• Documentation Studies.
  Study all documentation (e.g., customer analysis, market analysis, technology analysis, user analysis) that may provide valuable input to the application vision statement.
• Interviews.
  Interview the customer representatives, marketing representatives, user representatives, and business domain experts.
• Brainstorming.
  Brainstorm informal lists of business problems and opportunities, stakeholder needs, and application goals.
• Cross Functional Teams.
  Use a cross-functional requirements team including multiple roles to perform application visioning.
• Incremental development.
  Incrementally envision the application.
• Iteration.
  Iterate the application vision statement.
• Parallel Development.
  Envision the application in parallel with:
  • Other requirements engineering tasks (e.g., requirements elicitation, requirements reuse, requirements analysis, requirements management).
  • Other activities (e.g., management).
• Timeboxing.
  Timebox the application visioning so that new increments of application goals are available at regular intervals for driving the requirements elicitation, reuse, analysis, and specification tasks.

Work Products

Application visioning typically results in the production of the following work products:

• Application Vision Statement

Guidelines

• Application visioning is definitely required for application development projects.
• Some level of application visioning is usually needed to provide a foundation for the eliciting the application’s requirements.