Component Visioning

Definition

Component Visioning

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

Classification

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

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

Responsibilities

The typical responsibilities of Component Visioning are to:

• Form a consensus regarding the customer organization’s vision of an component among its stakeholders.
• Determine and document an component’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 the component can be built.

Preconditions

Component visioning can typically begin when the following preconditions hold:

• The initiation phase has begun.
• The requirements team is staffed and adequately trained in component 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 component’ mission, feature set, and goals.

Completion Criteria

Component visioning is typically complete when the following postconditions hold:

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

Steps

Component 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 component.
• Determine and document the mission of the component.
• Determine and document the business problems the component is intended to solve and the business opportunities that the component is intended to take advantage of.
• Determine and document the needs of the major stakeholders.
• Determine and document the overall goals of the component:
  • Business Goals
  • Functional Goals (a.k.a., desired feature set)
  • Data Goals
  • Quality Goals
• Determine and document the top-level constraints on the component:
  • Business Rules
  • Business Constraints
  • Data, Hardware, and Software Constraints
  • Industry Standards
  • Legal and Regulatory Constraints

Techniques

Component 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 component 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 component goals.
• Cross Functional Teams.
  Use a cross-functional requirements team including multiple roles to perform component visioning.
• Incremental development.
  Incrementally envision the component.
• Iteration.
  Iterate the component vision statement.
• Parallel Development.
  Envision the component 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 component visioning so that new increments of component goals are available at regular intervals for driving the requirements elicitation, reuse, analysis, and specification tasks.

Work Products

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

• Component Vision Statement

Guidelines

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