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Babok glossary
Terms to learn
227
Business
Professional
02/22/2016
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Term
Activity Diagram
 Definition
A model that illustrates the flow of processes and/or complex use cases by showing each activityalong with information flows and concurrent activities. Steps can be superimposed onto horizontal swimlanes for the roles that perform the steps.
Term
Activity
 Definition
A unit of work performed as part of an initiative or process.
Term
Actor(s)
 Definition
The human and nonhuman roles that interact with the system.
Term
Allocation
 Definition
See requirements allocation.
Term
Analyst
 Definition
A generic name for a role with the responsibilities of developing and managing requirements. Other names include business analyst, business integrator, requirements analyst, requirements engineer, and systems analyst.
Term
Association
 Definition
A link between two elements or objects in a diagram.
Term
Assumption
 Definition
Assumptions are influencing factors that are believed to be true but have not been confirmed to be accurate.
Term
Attribute
 Definition
A data element with a specified data type that describes information associated with a concept or entity.
Term
Baseline
 Definition
A point-in-time view of requirements that have been reviewed and agreed upon to serve as a basis for further development.
Term
Benchmarking
 Definition
A comparison of a process or system’s cost, time, quality, or other metrics to those of leading peer organizations to identify opportunities for improvement.
Term
Black Box Tests
 Definition
Tests written without regard to how the software is implemented. These tests show only what the expected input and outputs will be.
Term
Brainstorming
 Definition
Brainstorming is a team activity that seeks to produce a broad or diverse set of options through the rapid and uncritical generation of ideas.
Term
Business Analysis
 Definition
Business analysis is the set of tasks and techniques used to work as a liaison amongstakeholders in order to understand the structure, policies and operations of an organization, and recommend solutions that enable the organization to achieve its goals.
Term
Business Analysis Approach
 Definition
The set of processes, templates, and activities that will be used to perform business analysis in a specific context.
Term
Business Analysis Communication Plan
 Definition
A description of the types of communication the business analyst will perform during business analysis, the recipients of those communications, and the form in which communication should occur.
Term
Business Analysis Plan
 Definition
A description of the planned activities that the business analyst will execute in order to perform the business analysis work involved in a specific initiative.
Term
Business Analyst
 Definition
A practitioner of business analysis.
Term
Business Architecture
 Definition
A subset of the enterprise architecture that defines an organization’s current and future state, including its strategy, its goals and objectives, the internal environment through a process or functional view, the external environment in which the business operates, and the stakeholdersaffected by the organization's activities.
Term
Business Case
 Definition
An assessment of the costs and benefits associated with a proposed initiative.
Term
Business Constraint(s)
 Definition
Business constraints are limitations placed on the solution design by the organization that needs the solution. Business constraints describe limitations on available solutions, or an aspect of the current state that cannot be changed by the deployment of the new solution. See also technical constraint.
Term
Business Domain
 Definition
See domain.
Term
Business Domain Model
 Definition
A conceptual view of all or part of an enterprise focusing on products, deliverables and eventsthat are important to the mission of the organization. The domain model is useful to validate the solution scope with the business and technical stakeholders. See also model.
Term
Business Event
 Definition
A system trigger that is initiated by humans.
Term
Business Goal
 Definition
A state or condition the business must satisfy to reach its vision.
Term
Business Need(s)
 Definition
A type of high-level business requirement that is a statement of a business objective, or an impact the solution should have on its environment.
Term
Business Policy
 Definition
A business policy is a non-actionable directive that supports a business goal.
Term
Business Process
 Definition
A set of defined ad-hoc or sequenced collaborative activities performed in a repeatable fashion by an organization. Processes are triggered by events and may have multiple possible outcomes. A successful outcome of a process will deliver value to one or more stakeholders.
Term
Business Requirement
 Definition
A higher level business rationale that, when addressed, will permit the organization to increase revenue, avoid costs, improve service, or meet regulatory requirements.
Term
Business Requirements Document
 Definition
A Business Requirements Document is a requirements package that describes business requirements and stakeholder requirements (it documents requirements of interest to the business, rather than documenting business requirements).
Term
Business Rule(s)
 Definition
A business rule is a specific, actionable, testable directive that is under the control of the business and supports a business policy.
Term
Capability
 Definition
A function of an organization that enables it to achieve a business goal or objective.
Term
Cardinality
 Definition
The number of occurrences of one entity in a data model that are linked to a second entity. Cardinality is shown on a data model with a special notation, number (e.g., 1), or letter (e.g., M for many).
Term
Cause and Effect Diagram
 Definition
See fishbone diagram.
Term
Change Control Board (CCB)
 Definition
A small group of stakeholders who will make decisions regarding the disposition and treatment of changing requirements.
Term
Change-driven Methodology
 Definition
A methodology that focuses on rapid delivery of solution capabilities in an incremental fashion and direct involvement of stakeholders to gather feedback on the solution's performance.
Term
Checklist
 Definition
A quality control technique. They may include a standard set of quality elements that reviewers use for requirements verification and requirements validation or be specifically developed to capture issues of concern to the project.
Term
Class
 Definition
A descriptor for a set of system objects that share the same attributes, operations, relationships, and behavior. A class represents a concept in the system under design. When used as an analysis model, a class will generally also correspond to a real-world entity.
Term
Class Model
 Definition
A type of data model that depicts information groups as classes.
Term
Code
 Definition
A system of programming statements, symbols, and rules used to represent instructions to a computer.
Term
Commercial-off-the-Shelf Software (COTS)
 Definition
Software developed and sold for a particular market.
Term
Competitive Analysis
 Definition
A structured process which captures the key characteristics of an industry to predict the long-term profitability prospects and to determine the practices of the most significant competitors.
Term
Constraint
 Definition
A constraint describes any limitations imposed on the solution that do not support the business or stakeholder needs.
Term
Context Diagram
 Definition
An analysis model that illustrates product scope by showing the system in its environment with the external entities (people and systems) that give to and receive from the system.
Term
Cost Benefit Analysis
 Definition
Analysis done to compare and quantify the financial and non-financial costs of making a change or implementing a solution compared to the benefits gained.
Term
Customer
 Definition
A stakeholder who uses products or services delivered by an organization.
Term
Data Dictionary
 Definition
An analysis model describing the data structures and attributes needed by the system.
Term
Data Entity
 Definition
A group of related information to be stored by the system. Entities can be people, roles, places, things, organizations, occurrences in time, concepts, or documents.
Term
Data Flow Diagram (DFD)
 Definition
An analysis model that illustrates processes that occur, along with the flows of data to and from those processes.
Term
Data Model
 Definition
An analysis model that depicts the logical structure of data, independent of the data design or data storage mechanisms.
Term
Decision Analysis
 Definition
An approach to decision-making that examines and models the possible consequences of different decisions. Decision analysis assists in making an optimal decision under conditions of uncertainty.
Term
Decision Tables
 Definition
An analysis model that specifies complex business rules or logic concisely in an easy-to-read tabular format, specifying all of the possible conditions and actions that need to be accounted for in business rules.
Term
Decision Tree
 Definition
An analysis model that provides a graphical alternative to decision tables by illustrating conditions and actions in sequence.
Term
Decomposition
 Definition
A technique that subdivides a problem into its component parts in order to facilitate analysis and understanding of those components.
Term
Defect
 Definition
A deficiency in a product or service that reduces its quality or varies from a desired attribute, state, or functionality. See also requirements defect.
Term
Deliverable
 Definition
Any unique and verifiable work product or service that a party has agreed to deliver.
Term
Design Constraints
 Definition
Software requirements that limit the options available to the system designer.
Term
Desired Outcome
 Definition
The business benefits that will result from meeting the business need and the end state desired by stakeholders.
Term
Developer
 Definition
Developers are responsible for the construction of software applications. Areas of expertise include development languages, development practices and application components.
Term
Dialog Hierarchy
 Definition
An analysis model that shows user interface dialogs arranged as hierarchies.
Term
Dialog Map
 Definition
An analysis model that illustrates the architecture of the system's user interface.
Term
Discovery Session
 Definition
See requirements workshop.
Term
Document Analysis
 Definition
Document analysis is a means to elicit requirements of an existing system by studying available documentation and identifying relevant information.
Term
Domain
 Definition
The problem area undergoing analysis.
Term
Domain Subject Matter Expert (SME)
 Definition
A person with specific expertise in an area or domain under investigation.
Term
Elicitation
 Definition
An activity within requirements development that identifies sources for requirements and then uses elicitation techniques (e.g., interviews, prototypes, facilitated workshops, documentation studies) to gather requirements from those sources.
Term
Elicitation Workshop
 Definition
See requirements workshop.
Term
End User
 Definition
A person or system that directly interacts with the solution. End users can be humans who interface with the system, or systems that send or receive data files to or from the system.
Term
Enterprise
 Definition
An organizational unit, organization, or collection of organizations that share a set of commongoals and collaborate to provide specific products or services to customers.
Term
Enterprise Architecture
 Definition
Enterprise architecture is a description of an organization’s business processes, IT software and hardware, people, operations and projects, and the relationships between them.
Term
Entity-Relationship Diagram
 Definition
An entity-relationship diagram is a graphical representation of the entities relevant to a chosen problem domain, the relationships between them, and their attributes.
Term
Evaluation
 Definition
The systematic and objective assessment of a solution to determine its status and efficacy in meeting objectives over time, and to identify ways to improve the solution to better meet objectives. See also metric, indicator and monitoring.
Term
Event
 Definition
An event is something that occurs to which an organizational unit, system, or process must respond.
Term
Event Response Table
 Definition
An analysis model in table format that defines the events (i.e., the input stimuli that trigger the system to carry out some function) and their responses.
Term
Evolutionary Prototype
 Definition
A prototype that is continuously modified and updated in response to feedback from users.
Term
Exploratory Prototype
 Definition
A prototype developed to explore or verify requirements.
Term
External Interfaces
 Definition
Interfaces with other systems (hardware, software, and human) that a proposed system will interact with.
Term
Feasibility Analysis
 Definition
See feasibility study.
Term
Feasibility Study
 Definition
An evaluation of proposed alternatives to determine if they are technically possible within the constraints of the organization and whether they will deliver the desired benefits to the organization.
Term
Feature
 Definition
A cohesive bundle of externally visible functionality that should align with business goals andobjectives. Each feature is a logically related grouping of functional requirements or non-functional requirements described in broad strokes.
Term
Fishbone Diagram
 Definition
A diagramming technique used in root cause analysis to identify underlying causes of an observed problem, and the relationships that exist between those causes.
Term
Focus Group
 Definition
A focus group is a means to elicit ideas and attitudes about a specific product, service or opportunity in an interactive group environment. The participants share their impressions, preferences and needs, guided by a moderator.
Term
Force Field Analysis
 Definition
A graphical method for depicting the forces that support and oppose a change. Involves identifying the forces, depicting them on opposite sides of a line (supporting and opposing forces) and then estimating the strength of each set of forces.
Term
Functional Requirement(s)
 Definition
The product capabilities, or things the product must do for its users.
Term
Gap Analysis
 Definition
A comparison of the current state and desired future state of an organization in order to identify differences that need to be addressed.
Term
Glossary
 Definition
A list and definition of the business terms and concepts relevant to the solution being built or enhanced.
Term
Goal
 Definition
See business goal.
Term
Horizontal Prototype
 Definition
A prototype that shows a shallow, and possibly wide, view of the system's functionality, but which does not generally support any actual use or interaction.
Term
Impact Analysis
 Definition
An impact analysis assesses the effects that a proposed change will have on a stakeholder or stakeholder group, project, or system.
Term
Implementation Subject Matter Expert (SME)
 Definition
A stakeholder who will be responsible for designing, developing, and implementing the change described in the requirements and have specialized knowledge regarding the construction of one or more solution components.
Term
Included Use Cases
 Definition
A use case composed of a common set of steps used by multiple use cases.
Term
Incremental Delivery
 Definition
Creating working software in multiple releases so the entire product is delivered in portions over time.
Term
Indicator
 Definition
An indicator identifies a specific numerical measurement that indicates progress toward achieving an impact, output, activity or input. See also metric.
Term
Initiative
 Definition
Any effort undertaken with a defined goal or objective.
Term
Inspection
 Definition
A formal type of peer review that utilizes a predefined and documented process, specific participant roles, and the capture of defect and process metrics. See also structured walkthrough.
Term
Interface
 Definition
A shared boundary between any two persons and/or systems through which information is communicated.
Term
Interoperability
 Definition
Ability of systems to communicate by exchanging data or services.
Term
Interview
 Definition
A systematic approach to elicit information from a person or group of people in an informal or formal setting by asking relevant questions and documenting the responses.
Term
Iteration
 Definition
A process in which a deliverable (or the solution overall) is progressively elaborated upon. Each iteration is a self-contained "mini-project" in which a set of activities are undertaken, resulting in the development of a subset of project deliverables. For each iteration, the team plans its work, does the work, and checks it for quality and completeness. (Iterations can occur within other iterations as well. For example, an iteration of requirements development would includeelicitation, analysis, specification, and validation activities.)
Term
Knowledge Area
 Definition
A group of related tasks that support a key function of business analysis.
Term
Lessons Learned Process
 Definition
A process improvement technique used to learn about and improve on a process or project. A lessons learned session involves a special meeting in which the team explores what worked, what didn't work, what could be learned from the just-completed iteration, and how to adapt processes and techniques before continuing or starting anew.
Term
Metadata
 Definition
Metadata is information that is used to understand the context and validity of information recorded in a system.
Term
Methodology
 Definition
A set of processes, rules, templates, and working methods that prescribe how business analysis, solution development and implementation is performed in a particular context.
Term
Metric
 Definition
A metric is a quantifiable level of an indicator that an organization wants to accomplish at a specific point in time.
Term
Model(s)
 Definition
A representation and simplification of reality developed to convey information to a specific audience to support analysis, communication and understanding.
Term
Monitoring
 Definition
Monitoring is a continuous process of collecting data to determine how well a solution is implemented compared to expected results. See also metric and indicator.
Term
Need(s)
 Definition
See business need.
Term
Non-functional Requirement(s)
 Definition
The quality attributes, design and implementation constraints, and external interfaces that theproduct must have.
Term
Objective
 Definition
A target or metric that a person or organization seeks to meet in order to progress towards agoal.
Term
Object Oriented Modeling
 Definition
An approach to software engineering where software is comprised of components that are encapsulated groups of data and functions which can inherit behavior and attributes from other components; and whose components communicate via messages with one another. In some organizations, the same approach is used for business engineering to describe and package the logical components of the business.
Term
Observation
 Definition
Observation is a means to elicit requirements by conducting an assessment of the stakeholder’s work environment.
Term
Operational Support
 Definition
A stakeholder who helps to keep the solution functioning, either by providing support to end users (trainers, help desk) or by keeping the solution operational on a day-to-day basis (network and other tech support).
Term
Operative Rule(s)
 Definition
The business rules an organization chooses to enforce as a matter of policy. They are intended to guide the actions of people working within the business. They may oblige people to take certain actions, prevent people from taking actions, or prescribe the conditions under which an action may be taken.
Term
Opportunity Analysis
 Definition
The process of examining new business opportunities to improve organizational performance.
Term
Optionality
 Definition
Defining whether or not a relationship between entities in a data model is mandatory. Optionality is shown on a data model with a special notation.
Term
Organization
 Definition
An autonomous unit within an enterprise under the management of a single individual or board, with a clearly defined boundary that works towards common goals and objectives. Organizations operate on a continuous basis, as opposed to an organizational unit or project team, which may be disbanded once its objectives are achieved.
Term
Organization Modeling
 Definition
The analysis technique used to describe roles, responsibilities and reporting structures that exist within an organization.
Term
Organizational Process Asset
 Definition
All materials used by groups within an organization to define, tailor, implement, and maintain their processes.
Term
Organizational Readiness Assessment
 Definition
An assessment that describes whether stakeholders are prepared to accept the change associated with a solution and are able to use it effectively.
Term
Organizational Unit
 Definition
Any recognized association of people in the context of an organization or enterprise.
Term
Peer Review
 Definition
A validation technique in which a small group of stakeholders evaluates a portion of a work product to find errors to improve its quality.
Term
Plan-driven Methodology
 Definition
Any methodology that emphasizes planning and formal documentation of the processes used to accomplish a project and of the results of the project. Plan-driven methodologies emphasize the reduction of risk and control over outcomes over the rapid delivery of a solution.
Term
Prioritization
 Definition
The process of determining the relative importance of a set of items in order to determine the order in which they will be addressed.
Term
Problem Statement
 Definition
A brief statement or paragraph that describes the problems in the current state and clarifies what a successful solution will look like.
Term
Process
 Definition
See business process.
Term
Process Map
 Definition
A business model that shows a business process in terms of the steps and input and output flows across multiple functions, organizations, or job roles.
Term
Process Model
 Definition
A visual model or representation of the sequential flow and control logic of a set of related activities or actions.
Term
Product
 Definition
A solution or component of a solution that is the result of a project.
Term
Product Backlog
 Definition
A set of user stories, requirements or features that have been identified as candidates for potential implementation, prioritized, and estimated.
Term
Product Scope
 Definition
The features and functions that characterize a product, service or result.
Term
Project
 Definition
A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.
Term
Project Charter
 Definition
A document issued by the project initiator or sponsor that formally authorizes the existence of a project, and provides the project manager with the authority to apply organizational resources to project activities.
Term
Project Manager
 Definition
The stakeholder assigned by the performing organization to manage the work required to achieve the project objectives.
Term
Project Scope
 Definition
The work that must be performed to deliver a product, service, or result with the specified features and functions. See also scope.
Term
Prototype
 Definition
A partial or preliminary version of the system.
Term
Quality
 Definition
The degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirements.
Term
Quality Assurance
 Definition
Activities performed to ensure that a process will deliver products that meet an appropriate level of quality.
Term
Quality Attributes
 Definition
The subset of nonfunctional requirements that describes properties of the software's operation, development, and deployment (e.g., performance, security, usability, portability, and testability).
Term
Questionnaire
 Definition
See survey.
Term
Regulator
 Definition
A stakeholder with legal or governance authority over the solution or the process used to develop it.
Term
Relationship
 Definition
A defined association between concepts, classes or entities. Relationships are usually named and include the cardinality of the association.
Term
Relationship Map
 Definition
A business model that shows the organizational context in terms of the relationships that exist among the organization, external customers, and providers.
Term
Repository
 Definition
A real or virtual facility where all information on a specific topic is stored and is available for retrieval.
Term
Request For Information (RFI)
 Definition
A requirements document issued to solicit vendor input on a proposed process or product. An RFI is used when the issuing organization seeks to compare different alternatives or is uncertain regarding the available options
Term
Request For Proposal (RFP)
 Definition
A requirements document issued when an organization is seeking a formal proposal from vendors. An RFP typically requires that the proposals be submitted following a specific processand using sealed bids which will be evaluated against a formal evaluation methodology.
Term
Request For Quote (RFQ)
 Definition
An informal solicitation of proposals from vendors.
Term
Requirement
 Definition
1. A condition or capability needed by a stakeholder to solve a problem or achieve an objective.
2. A condition or capability that must be met of possessed by a solution or solution component to satisfy a contract, standard, specification or other formally imposed documents.
3. A documented representation of a condition or capability as in 1) or 2).
Term
Requirement(s) Attribute
 Definition
Metadata related to a requirement used to assist with requirements development and management.
Term
Requirement(s) Defect
 Definition
An error in requirements caused by incorrect, incomplete, missing, or conflicting requirements.
Term
Requirements Allocation
 Definition
The process of apportioning requirements to subsystems and components (i.e., people, hardware, and software).
Term
Requirements Discovery Session
 Definition
See requirements workshop.
Term
Requirements Document
 Definition
See requirements package.
Term
Requirements Iteration
 Definition
An iteration that defines requirements for a subset of the solution scope. For example, an iteration of requirements would include identifying a part of the overall product scope to focus upon, identifying requirements sources for that portion of the product, analyzing stakeholdersand planning how to elicit requirements from them, conducting elicitation techniques, documenting the requirements, and validating the requirements.
Term
Requirements Management
 Definition
The activities that control requirements development, including requirements change control, requirements attributes definition, and requirements traceability.
Term
Requirements Management Plan
 Definition
A description of the requirements management process.
Term
Requirements Management Tool
 Definition
A software tool that stores requirements information in a database, captures requirements attributes and associations, and facilitates requirements reporting.
Term
Requirements Model
 Definition
A representation of requirements using text and diagrams. Requirements models can also be called user requirements models or analysis models and can supplement textual requirements specifications.
Term
Requirements Package
 Definition
A requirements package is a set of requirements grouped together in a document or presentation for communication to stakeholders.
Term
Requirements Quality
 Definition
See requirements validation and requirements verification.
Term
Requirements Risk Mitigation Strategy
 Definition
An analysis of requirements-related risks that ranks risks and identifies actions to avoid or minimize those risks.
Term
Requirements Signoff
 Definition
Formal approval of a set of requirements by a sponsor or other decision maker.
Term
Requirements Trace Matrix
 Definition
A matrix used to track requirements' relationships. Each column in the matrix provides requirements information and associated project or software development components.
Term
Requirements Traceability
 Definition
The ability to identify and document the lineage of each requirement, including its derivation (backward traceability), its allocation (forward traceability), and its relationship to other requirements.
Term
Requirements Validation
 Definition
The work done to ensure that the stated requirements support and are aligned with the goalsand objectives of the business.
Term
Requirements Verification
 Definition
The work done to evaluate requirements to ensure they are defined correctly and are at an acceptable level of quality. It ensures the requirements are sufficiently defined and structured so that the solution development team can use them in the design, development and implementation of the solution.
Term
Requirements Workshop
 Definition
A requirements workshop is a structured meeting in which a carefully selected group ofstakeholders collaborate to define and or refine requirements under the guidance of a skilled neutral facilitator.
Term
Retrospective
 Definition
See lessons learned process.
Term
Return on Investment
 Definition
A measure of the profitability of a project or investment.
Term
Risk
 Definition
An uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, will affect the goals or objectives of a proposed change.
Term
Risk Mitigation Strategy
 Definition
See requirements risk mitigation strategy.
Term
Root Cause Analysis
 Definition
Root cause analysis is a structured examination of an identified problem to understand the underlying causes.
Term
Scenario
 Definition
An analysis model that describes a series of actions or tasks that respond to an event. Each scenario is an instance of a use case.
Term
Scope
 Definition
The area covered by a particular activity or topic of interest. See also project scope and solution scope.
Term
Scope Model
 Definition
A model that defines the boundaries of a business domain or solution.
Term
Secondary Actor
 Definition
An actor who participates in but does not initiate a use case.
Term
Sequence Diagram
 Definition
A type of diagram that shows objects participating in interactions and the messages exchanged between them.
Term
Service
 Definition
Work carried out or on behalf of others.
Term
Software Engineer
 Definition
See developer.
Term
Software/Systems Requirements Specification
 Definition
A requirements document written primarily for Implementation SMEs describing functional andnonfunctional requirements.
Term
Solution
 Definition
A solution meets a business need by resolving a problem or allowing an organization to take advantage of an opportunity.
Term
Solution Requirement
 Definition
A characteristic of a solution that meets the business and stakeholder requirements. May be subdivided into functional and non-functional requirements.
Term
Solution Scope
 Definition
The set of capabilities a solution must deliver in order to meet the business need. See alsoscope.
Term
Span of Control
 Definition
Span of control is the number of employees a manger is directly (or indirectly) responsible for.
Term
Sponsor
 Definition
A stakeholder who authorizes or legitimizes the product development effort by contracting for or paying for the project.
Term
Stakeholder
 Definition
A group or person who has interests that may be affected by an initiative or influence over it.
Term
Stakeholder Analysis
 Definition
The work to identify the stakeholders who may be impacted by a proposed initiative and assess their interests and likely participation.
Term
Stakeholder List, Roles, and Responsibility Designation
 Definition
A listing of the stakeholders affected by a business need or proposed solution and a description of their participation in a project or other initiative.
Term
Stakeholder Requirement
 Definition
Stakeholder requirements are statements of the needs of a particular stakeholder or class of stakeholders. They describe the needs that a given stakeholder has and how that stakeholder will interact with a solution. Stakeholder requirements serve as a bridge between business requirements and the various categories of solution requirements.
Term
State Diagram
 Definition
An analysis model showing the life cycle of a data entity or class.
Term
State Machine Diagram
 Definition
See state diagram.
Term
State Transition Diagram
 Definition
See state diagram..
Term
Stated Requirements
 Definition
A requirement articulated by a stakeholder that has not been analyzed, verified, or validated. Stated requirements frequently reflect the desires of a stakeholder rather than the actual need.
Term
Structural Rule
 Definition
Structural rules determine when something is or is not true or when things fall into a certain category. They describe categorizations that may change over time.
Term
Storyboard
 Definition
See dialog hierarchy and dialog map.
Term
Structured Walkthrough
 Definition
A structured walkthrough is an organized peer review of a deliverable with the objective of finding errors and omissions. It is considered a form of quality assurance.
Term
Subject Matter Expert (SME)
 Definition
A stakeholder with specific expertise in an aspect of the problem domain or potential solution alternatives or components.
Term
Supplier
 Definition
A stakeholder who provides products or services to an organization.
Term
Survey
 Definition
A survey administers a set of written questions to stakeholders in order to collect responses from a large group in a relatively short period of time.
Term
Swimlane
 Definition
The horizontal or vertical section of a process model that show which activities are performed by a particular actor or role.
Term
SWOT Analysis
 Definition
SWOT is an acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. It is a model used to understand influencing factors and how they may affect an initiative.
Term
System
 Definition
A collection of interrelated elements that interact to achieve an objective. System elements can include hardware, software, and people. One system can be a sub-element (or subsystem) of another system.
Term
Technical Constraint(s)
 Definition
Technical constraints are limitations on the design of a solution that derive from the technology used in its implementation. See also business constraint.
Term
Technique
 Definition
Techniques alter the way a business analysis task is performed or describe a specific form the output of a task may take.
Term
Temporal Event
 Definition
A system trigger that is initiated by time.
Term
Tester
 Definition
A stakeholder responsible for assessing the quality of, and identifying defects in, a software application.
Term
Throw-away Prototype
 Definition
A prototype used to quickly uncover and clarify interface requirements using simple tools, sometimes just paper and pencil. Usually discarded when the final system has been developed.
Term
Timebox
 Definition
A fixed period of time to accomplish a desired outcome.
Term
Traceability
 Definition
See requirements traceability.
Term
Transition Requirement(s)
 Definition
A classification of requirements that describe capabilities that the solution must have in order to facilitate transition from the current state of the enterprise to the desired future state, but that will not be needed once that transition is complete.
Term
Unified Modeling Language (UML)
 Definition
A non-proprietary modeling and specification language used to specify, visualize, and document deliverables for object-oriented software-intensive systems.
Term
Use Case
 Definition
An analysis model that describes the tasks that the system will perform for actors and the goalsthat the system achieves for those actors along the way.
Term
Use Case Diagram
 Definition
A type of diagram defined by UML that captures all actors and use cases involved with a systemor product.
Term
User
 Definition
A stakeholder, person, device, or system that directly or indirectly accesses a system.
Term
User Acceptance Test
 Definition
Test cases that users employ to judge whether the delivered system is acceptable. Each acceptance test describes a set of system inputs and expected results.
Term
User Requirement
 Definition
See stakeholder requirement(s).
Term
User Requirements Document
 Definition
A requirements document written for a user audience, describing user requirements and the impact of the anticipated changes on the users.
Term
User Story
 Definition
A high-level, informal, short description of a solution capability that provides value to astakeholder. A user story is typically one or two sentences long and provides the minimum information necessary to allow a developer to estimate the work required to implement it.
Term
Validated Requirements
 Definition
Requirements that have been demonstrated to deliver business value and to support the business goals and objectives.
Term
Validation
 Definition
The process of checking a product to ensure that it satisfies its intended use and conforms to its requirements. Validation ensures that you built the correct solution. Also see requirements validation.
Term
Variance Analysis
 Definition
Analysis of discrepancies between planned and actual performance, to determine the magnitude of those discrepancies and recommend corrective and preventative action as required.
Term
Verification
 Definition
The process of checking that a deliverable produced at a given stage of development satisfies the conditions or specifications of the previous stage. Verification ensures that you built the solution correctly. Also see requirements verification.
Term
Verified Requirements
 Definition
Requirements that have been shown to demonstrate the characteristics of requirements quality and as such are cohesive, complete, consistent, correct, feasible, modifiable, unambiguous, and testable.
Term
Vertical Prototype
 Definition
A prototype that dives into the details of the interface, functionality, or both.
Term
Vision Statement (product vision statement)
 Definition
A brief statement or paragraph that describes the why, what, and who of the desired software product from a business point of view.
Term
Walkthrough
 Definition
A type of peer review in which participants present, discuss, and step through a work product to find errors. Walkthroughs of requirements documentation are used to verify the correctness of requirements. See also structured walkthrough.
Term
Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)
 Definition
A deliverable-oriented hierarchical decomposition of the work to be executed by the project team to accomplish the project objectives and create the required deliverables. It organizes and defines the total scope of the project.
Term
Work Product
 Definition
A document or collection of notes or diagrams used by the business analyst during the requirements development process.
Term
Activity Diagram
Definition
A model that illustrates the flow of processes and/or complex use cases by showing each activityalong with information flows and concurrent activities. Steps can be superimposed onto horizontal swimlanes for the roles that perform the steps.
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