Using MatCal to Perform Mathematical and Logical Calculations in Modern Requirements Management

Using MatCal to Perform Mathematical and Logical Calculations in Modern Requirements Management

What is MatCal?

MatCal is a feature in Modern Requirement4DevOps used to perform mathematical and logical expressions on work items.

Why we need MatCal in Requirements Management

To manage the relationships between work item properties in a smarter way! It eliminates the manual efforts of doing the calculation outside the project environment and avoids risks of introducing incorrect calculation results to your projects.

Let’s look at a simple example here to illustrate a relationship between work item properties.

Business Value and Priority are properties of work item Feature.  Normally, high Business Value leads to high Priority.

With the right configuration, MatCal could help you manage the relationship by automatically assigning Priority value based on the Business Value input.

Industry Use Scenarios

Scenario 1: Automotive Safety Integrity Level (ASIL) in ISO 26262

Scenario 2: Risk rating is automatically assigned according to Severity score and Occurrence score

Scenario 3: Priority rating is automatically assigned according to Severity score and Likelihood score

Please watch the video for extra usage scenarios and tutorials on MatCal!

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Time to Read: 10 minutes

Reusing Requirements

Requirements Reuse: An Effective Way to Facilitate Requirements Elicitation

Learn how to Reuse Requirements in Azure DevOps

Azure DevOps is an incredible platform that provides a single-source of truth. 
For many teams that statement alone is enough to consider using the world’s leading ALM platform for their requirements management. Being able to tie development tasks to requirements, and those to Test Cases is hard to pass up. 

But what if you don’t need all of the features of a full ALM platform?
What if you only need a solution for your Requirements Management needs? 

You can use all of the rich features of Modern Requirements4DevOps to turn your Azure DevOps project into a full-featured Requirements Management solution. One of these features is the ability to reuse requirements across different projects, collections, and servers using the Modern Requirements4DevOps Reuse tool.

Looking to reuse requirements? 
You’re in the right place. 

What you’ll learn in this short article:

  1. Benefits of reusing requirements
  2. The two types of reusing requirements
  3. How reusing requirements can be used effectively

The Benefits of Reusing Requirements

When we talk about the benefits of requirements reuse there is one thing that needs to be addressed first.

The most common question I get from hardware teams is “How could this possibly benefit teams who aren’t software-related?”

So before we begin, requirements reuse is not just for software teams.

Requirements reuse is a topic that often catches people’s attention.

This is because in the world economy we are seeing companies focusing on given domain or areas within given industries. This leads to companies building products within a specific domain, or around a given solution, and really narrowing in on the few things they can be really successful at.

This means that as you build projects, solutions, or systems, often a team can reuse elements of a previous project. This is where requirements reuse fits into the picture.

By enabling a team to reuse those requirements in the next project they are able to reduce the amount of overhead required in getting started in a new project.

For some people this might already be obvious.

What might not be obvious, however, is that reuse can also be a great way of handling requirements that are scoped above the project level. This would include non-functional requirements, or risks that need to be considered as a company-wide mandate. This would even go so far as to allow your team to reuse requirements whose purpose is strictly regulatory or compliance-centric. This functionality can be extended to software and hardware teams alike and can even help teams product teams devoted to a physical component or deliverable.

 

The Two Types of Reusing Requirements

Reusing Requirements by Reference

Reusing requirements by reference is a quick way to introduce existing requirements to your project by simply building links with them. By doing this, you could have direct access to those work items and review all the associated content, links, and attachments without actually copying them within or across projects.

Reusing Requirements by Reference

 

Reusing Requirements by Copy

In Azure DevOps there is very limited functionality for copying requirements, or other work items, from one project to another. But when you add Modern Requirements4DevOps into your Azure DevOps environment, requirements reuse meets its full potential.

When discussing the Reusing Requirements by Copy, there are three major approaches to consider.

Reusing Requirements by Copy

 

How to Reuse Requirements Effectively

After watching the above videos it is obvious that the Modern Requirements4DevOps Reuse tool is effective for reusing requirements.
It offers full control over the requirements you are choosing to reuse, allows you to apply customization to those requirements, and allows you to link the requirements to the source work item.

This means no matter where you want to send requirements, you can do so using the Modern Requirements4DevOps Reuse tool. But there are some ways that you can use the Reuse tool more effectively. 

The first notable mention is by pairing the reuse tool with the Modern Requirements4DevOps Baseline tool. 

What is a Baseline?
Many teams use Baselines of requirements and don’t even realize they do.

A Baseline is a snapshot of Work Items at a given point in time. 
For many teams they simply use Microsoft Word document versions as a baseline. 

When talking about capturing requirements at a given time, there are many reasons why the Modern Requirements4DevOps feature is better than the traditional Microsoft Word approach. With Modern Requirements4DevOps Baselines, you are able to capture a set of, work items as they were on any date of your choosing.

This means if you want to capture your requirements as they are two weeks ago, you can easily create a Baseline for those requirements on that date. This lends itself directly to the benefits of the Reuse tool added by Modern Requirements4DevOps.

By combining the Reuse tool with our Baseline, you can not only choose the set of requirements you want to reuse but also the version of those requirements as well. This allows you to take the best and most applicable version of your requirements forward to your next project. 

The next notable mention is to use the prefix / postfix / and other operations effectively when reusing requirements.

When reusing requirements, the Modern Requirements4DevOps Reuse tool allows you to customize how the requirements being reused will appear in their destination project. 

The screen which allows you to do this can be seen below:

 

Using the above feature will allow you to easily add a prefix or postfix to the requirements once they reach your chosen destination project. As seen above, you can also choose to send these requirements to a specific area path (like hardware or software for instance), or even into a given iteration so you can decide when these requirements get handled. 

The most commonly used feature in the field options, however, is the ability to add a tag. 
Often when you are sending requirements from one project to another you want to be able to easily identify and trace those requirements in your destination project. Adding a Tag will allow you to do this.

What is the link with Source Work Item Option?

This option allows you to establish a link between the work item you are reusing and the work item you create in your destination project. 

What link does it create? 
It links your new destination work item to your original work item via the “Related” link or any link type that you have configured in the admin area.
In the below image you can see a Test Case I have copied from project to project, using both the prefix “CL- ” and the “Link to source work item” options set.

 

Using the “Link to source work item” feature allows you to easily trace requirements back to where they were pulled from. While there are many use cases for this feature when moving requirements directly from project to project, this more advanced use cases are for when you are moving requirements from a library or repository into a project instead. 

How to merge copied baselines?

Baseline is a very useful tool no matter you want to reuse a single work item or a long list of work items from your source project/library. In Modern Requirements, you could create links between your source and copied works items so that you could locate the origins of these copied work items.

Although there are links in between, the copied work items are still considered to be independent of the source work items, which means any changes you make to either the copied or source work items will not impact their counterpart.

You might want to ask: how to synchronize the changes when necessary? Assume you have a library where all your design specification work items are saved, and you have reused them in 5 different projects. If now you have to modify some designs in the library, and you want all copied design specifications to be synchronized, you can simply use the Merge functionality, which is located under Source Copied Baseline(s) or Target Copied Baseline(s) in the Details tab of the Baseline module.

Baseline is a very useful tool no matter you want to reuse a single work item or a long list of work items from your source project/library. In Modern Requirements, you could create links between your source and copied works items so that you could locate the origins of these copied work items.

Although there are links in between, the copied work items are still considered to be independent of the source work items, which means any changes you make to either the copied or source work items will not impact their counterpart.

You might want to ask: how to synchronize the changes when necessary? Assume you have a library where all your design specification work items are saved, and you have reused them in 5 different projects. If now you have to modify some designs in the library, and you want all copied design specifications to be synchronized, you can simply use the Merge functionality, which is located under Source Copied Baseline(s) or Target Copied Baseline(s) in the Details tab of the Baseline module.

Still remember the definition of a baseline? A snapshot of selected work items at a point in time. So no matter what changes we have made to the baselined work items, the saved snapshot won’t change. So even if we have merged the baselines, the changes are done against the latest versions of the work items, not to the baselines themselves. Sounds like a little bit hard to understand?

Please watch the 5-minute Merge Copied Baselines video.

Merge Copied Baselines

 

Want to experience reuse's full potential?

Try Modern Requirements4DevOps for free today.

We offer you the ability to try our Requirements Management solution in your own Azure DevOps environment, or in an environment we supply that includes sample data. 

Try it today!

Importing Requirements to Azure DevOps

Importing Requirements into Azure DevOps

Learn how to easily import requirements (and some assets) into your ADO project

When moving to Azure DevOps, or when working offline away from your existing Azure DevOps project, you need a way to bring your newly created requirements into Azure DevOps.

Many teams face the issue of getting the requirements they have created in Excel, Word, and elsewhere into Azure DevOps. Luckily there are a few simple ways to do this without having to worry about adding a lengthy copy/paste session to your process! 

In this article, we’ll cover a few different ways to import requirements.

One of these options is free, and some are features provided by adding Modern Requirements4DevOps to your Azure DevOps project. 

The topics in this article are as follows:

  1. Importing Requirements from Microsoft Excel
  2. Importing Requirements from Microsoft Word
  3. Importing Diagrams and Mockups into Azure DevOps

Importing Requirements from Microsoft Excel

Whether you have all or some of your existing requirements in Excel, or you are looking to export requirements from an in-house tool to a .csv file, there is a free way to import your requirements to your Azure DevOps project. 

This is a free solution – provided you already have Azure DevOps and Excel.

The first step is to make sure you have the Microsoft Excel add-in called “Team tab.”

You can download this add-in directly from the link below:
https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/#other-family

(On the aforementioned page, Azure DevOps Office® Integration 2019 is listed under the Other Tools, Frameworks, and Redistributables section. )

If you clicked the link above, you will have the ability to turn on your Excel team tab. 

When enabled, this extension allows you to connect an Excel sheet directly to a given project in your Azure DevOps Organization. 

When you enable it you will have two primary functions available to you:
1) You will be able to publish requirements to your project from Excel
2) You will be able to pull requirements from your project to Excel

This means you can work on your requirements from either interface and connect the changes to your project. i.e. if you pull requirements into Excel and make changes, you can publish those changes backup to your requirements in your project. 

After you have run the installer you downloaded you are ready to enable the extension.

Enabling the Team tab in Excel:

  1. Open Excel
  2. Create a Blank Sheet 
  3. Click File
  4. Click Options
  5. Click Add-ins
  6. Choose COM Add-ins from the drop down near the bottom of the window
  7. Select “Team Foundation Add-In and select Okay. 
If you have issues with this process, follow this link.
 
If you now see the Team tab in Excel, you’re ready to import requirements! 

Using the Excel Team tab

In this video, we cover how your team can use the Import capabilities provided by the Excel Team tab Add-in.

 

Importing Requirements from Microsoft Word

The second way to import requirements into your project is through Microsoft Word. 

This feature is a “Preview Feature” available with any Enterprise Plus Modern Requirements4DevOps license. This means any user in your organization with an Enterprise Plus license will be be able to access and use the Word Import Feature. 

If you aren’t currently using Modern Requirements4DevOps, you can try this Word Import Feature by trying Modern Requirements4DevOps today!

Give it a try!

So how does Word Import work? 

Warning: As a Preview Feature, you should expect that this might not be prettiest solution, and will typically require some coding knowledge. But not much – and if you can borrow a developer familiar with xml (or any other scripting language) for 20 minutes, you should be just fine.

Word Import works by having a well-formatted Word document which uses different Headings to represent the different Work Items / Requirements and their properties in your document. 

For example, let’s take an example of a BRD you might already have in Word format.

You likely have your Introduction, Overview, Scope, and other context elements using the style of Heading 1. 

You might then have your Epics, Features and User Stories in this document as well. Your document might look like this:

Heading 1 – Introduction
-> Paragraph – All of the text for the Introduction goes here…

Heading 1 – Overview
-> Paragraph – All of the text for the Overview goes here…

Heading 1 – Scope
-> Paragraph – All of the text for the Scope goes here…

Heading 1 – Requirements
-> Heading 2 – Name of Epic
–> Heading 3 – Name of Feature
—> Heading 4 – Name of User Story
—-> Paragraph – Description of the User Story above

Now, your document might be a little different but that’s okay. The principles you are about to learn are the same. 

Word import requires a document (shown above) and a ruleset (explained below).

Typically an admin will create a ruleset that your team will use for importing documents, and it will only have to be done once. So if you have a document already created and your admin has created a ruleset you’re good to go. 

If your admin needs to create a ruleset, read on. 

Creating a ruleset is incredibly simple and is done by editing an XML file. 
The XML file you create will determine how the Word Import tool parses your document for:
1) Which pieces of the document are work items?
2) Which pieces of the document are properties of a given work item?

If you are working through this in real-time, it might help to download this ruleset file as a starting point and watch the following video:

Using the Sample Ruleset to Start

In this video, we cover how to use the sample ruleset file to import a simple requirements document. Please remember creating a ruleset is typically a one-time process. 

 

Importing Diagrams and Mockups into Azure DevOps

Diagrams, Mockups, and Use Case models can be incredible tools for authoring and eliciting requirements. 

This is why with Modern Requirements4DevOps, your team can easily build all of these visualizations directly from within your project. This allows you to benefit from a single-source of truth model where everything is built into your project. 

But maybe you already have Diagrams and Mockups that you would like to add to your Azure DevOps project and connect to requirements. Is it possible to import these assets?

The answer is yes.

Both our Mockup tool and our Diagram tool will allow you to easily bring existing Mockups or Diagrams into your Azure DevOps project. 

To do this, simply save your asset as a .png or .jpeg file from your chosen Mockup/Diagram tool. 
You can then upload your created asset to either the Modern Requirements4DevOp Simulation tool (mockups) or Diagram tool (diagrams). 

You might be thinking, but if we upload it as .png or .jpeg then how can we edit our Diagrams and Mockups? Well, you can’t. But there’s a reason you should do this even still. 

If you want to connect a single Diagram to 25 requirements without using Modern Requirements, you will have to open all 25 requirements and connect them to each individual requirement. 

When you update your Diagram in the future, you will have to reopen all 25 requirements and change the attachment. 

With Modern Requirements4DevOps however, you are able to create a Diagram work item that you can link all of your necessary requirements directly to using the right panel. This means you will be able to have your Diagram in one place, and when that Diagram needs updating, you can easily add in your updated image, and connect your attachment to that single work item. 

Conclusion

In this article we covered three distinct ways that you can import both requirements and their assets to your Azure DevOps project. 

You can import requirements through Excel or Word, or import your existing Diagrams and Mockups. 

If you are interested in using Modern Requirements4DevOps to support your requirements management process, consider giving our product a try here!

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Time to Read: 10 minutes

The FAQ Module

The FAQ Module

The solution for upfront requirements gathering

In this article we cover the features and benefits of the FAQ module.

This module was designed to help teams who gather requirements at the start of their requirements management process. By creating question lists teams can easily capture and reuse their knowledge of the elicitation process to ask the right questions that yield the best requirements.

What is the FAQ module?

The FAQ module is a repository of question lists that your team can construct, edit, change, template, and use to elicit requirements. By using the FAQ module to build up a knowledge base for your team, you can be confident that any team member can engage with stakeholders in an effective manner.

By building the best set of questions on that domain, your team can ensure that they are always eliciting the best possible set of requirements.

The main benefit of this module is that it allows your team the opportunity to build up a knowledge base that can be used by both experienced BA’s, as well as by those who might need to elicit requirements in an unfamiliar domain. The FAQ module comes already stocked with over 3000 questions that cover many different topics.

These topics include multiple ISO Compliance templates, as well as templates on Non-Functional Requirement topics such Scalability, Reusability, or Operability that can be used for elicitation.

For many teams this module will replace their Excel-based question lists they may have used in the past.

To stay in line with the other modules in the Modern Requirements toolset, the FAQ module takes what used to be a disconnected process and connects it directly with your project. This means your teams can easily add requirements into your project simply by supplying answers to the questions in your FAQ question list.

What Value does the FAQ module offer?

The value of our FAQ module can be described in two simple points.

  • The FAQ module helps create better requirements by guiding the elicitation process, leading to a greater likelihood of project success.
  • The FAQ module reduces the time spent on elicitation throughout your project, allowing your team to get started building sooner.

By using the valuable knowledge of experienced BA’s, you can create domain-specific question templates that help structure the elicitation process. This means you can send any BA of any experience level into a room with a stakeholder and feel confident they will create complete and actionable requirements.

By no longer needing to construct question templates and then copy elicited requirements to your RM tool, your team can move through the elicitation process faster. This means more time spent iterating on more accurate requirements and less time spent copy and pasting user stories that are likely to need more work.

What are the Use Cases for the FAQ module?

When we talk to our community about their use of the FAQ module, they often describe the ways in which this module has streamlined their process and made the elicitation phase of projects easier to navigate.

Even with teams who traditionally don’t use question lists, after joining our community they will tell us how much added value they see from being able to consolidate the knowledge of everyone on their team into one cohesive list.

Here are the Use Cases we have seen for the FAQ module.

USE CASE 1

My team currently gathers requirements up front and moves iteratively through our project thereafter. We currently use Excel during the requirements gathering phase, but it means that we are copying requirements to our tool of choice afterwards.

By being a team who gathers requirements up front, this provides a perfect opportunity to use a question list designed for that domain. But using Excel as a means of facilitating this question list is a recipe for a long copy-paste process later down the road. 

Copy/paste processes are generally error-prone and lengthy. It is often during these already long copy/paste processes that a team member will recognize they have missed a property of a work item that they need stakeholder input on.

In this case, using the FAQ module means you will have the question list in your Azure DevOps project already. When you ask your Stakeholder your question you will be able to answer that question in your FAQ question list and it will automatically create a requirement for you.

You can then open that requirement directly and pursue any follow up questions that you might have while you are still with your Stakeholder. This saves time and makes the elicitation process more thorough, while preventing your team from missing opportunities to get the right information at the right moment.

USE CASE 2

My team works in a compliant/regulated space and we need to ensure we are building the full set of requirements to remain compliant and auditable.

One of the best features of the FAQ module is that you can use many of our pre-built compliance-related templates to elicit requirements. Our pre-built templates have been created in partnership with many of our existing customers, as well as through partnerships with thought-leaders in these spaces.

In this case, teams with access to the FAQ module can speak to domain experts and consultants and build the question list that will help them create all the requirements necessary for compliance and regulation. Once created, these question lists can be reused in several projects and can be deployed again and again.

 

How do I use the FAQ module effectively?

The FAQ module provides incredible benefits for teams inside the elicitation phase of their project. Here are some of the ways you can use the module to facilitate project success.

 

Use the Pre-built Question List Templates

When users need a template on either Non-Functional Requirements, or on ISO topics, they can get started quickly by using one of our built-in templates. These templates already contain many of the most important questions about these topics. Users can start with a pre-built template and remove questions that are not relevant and/or add in new questions that necessary.

Build your own Question List Templates

If one of our pre-built templates does not satisfy your need, teams can easily build question lists from scratch. By starting with a blank template, your team can easily build up a comprehensive set of questions that make eliciting requirements a simple and more efficient process.

Once a question list is built it can be reused across projects to help with your elicitation phase down the road.

Build Question Lists that less experienced members of your team

By building question lists you are effectively providing guidance for any member who might be less familiar with a domain, solution, or system. These lists are then a great tool for guiding newer BA’s, or experienced BA’s from a different domain, during the elicitation phase. Teams understand that the quality of the questions we ask at the start of a project directly reflect in the quality of the requirements we elicit.

By building question lists with our FAQ module, you can ensure that you are getting the best possible requirements the first time.

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Time to Read: 5 minutes

The Smart Docs Module

The Smart Docs Module

The full replacement for Microsoft Word when managing requirements

In this article we cover the features and benefits of the Smart Docs module. 
Designed to bridge the gap between document creation and requirements management, Smart Docs empowers users with documentation capabilities within Azure DevOps. This means your documents now live within your team’s project, and your team can finally benefit from a complete and central source of truth.
 

What is Smart Docs?

Smart Docs is an online document authoring system that is built directly into Azure DevOps. As part of
the Modern Requirements4DevOps Enterprise Edition, this module stands as a full replacement for
Microsoft Word when managing requirements.
 
There are many engaging ways to use Smart Docs.
The most obvious way this tool can benefit your team is by allowing you to create living requirements
documents within Azure DevOps. What do we mean by living requirements documents? If you have ever
used Microsoft Word as part of your requirements management process you have undoubtedly had to
deal with the pains of changing requirements. Changing requirements is in and of itself typically
something teams can handle, but when a requirement is in “some document” which lives “somewhere”
… teams can go mad.
 
Building living requirements documents means that you can create a Smart Doc and include your
requirements within that document. If you update a requirement from the Smart Doc interface, or make
changes to a requirement in the backlog, that requirement will be updated everywhere. This means no more hunting for documents which contain the requirements you have changed.
 
The documents we see teams using include, but are not limited to:
  • Business Requirements Documents
  • System Requirements Documents
  • Functional / Non-functional Requirements Documents

What value does Smart Docs offer?

As a purpose-driven tool, Smart Docs has been uniquely designed to tackle real-world issues our users
are currently facing, or which they have already faced in the past. By working closely with our
community, and strategically incorporating feedback, we have built a tool that offers the following
unique value proposition:
  • Documents (and their versions) created in Smart Docs are saved within your Azure DevOps
  • project.
  • Removes the need for all third-party applications and document repositories.
  • Documents are updates automatically as requirements change anywhere in Azure DevOps.
  • Documents can be versioned, compared, output, and reviewed, directly from with Azure DevOps.
 

What are the Use Cases for Smart Docs?

When we asked a group of prospects how important documentation is to their requirements management process, we found that most teams value documentation to a high degree.
 
We also found however, that teams found documentation to be the first thing to “fall by the wayside” when a project gets going.
 
When asked why this was the case, teams responded that it was the most difficult asset to maintain, and
that document creation required a large amount of time copy and pasting and the asset was often being
maintained separately from their requirements.
 
The following represents only a few Use Cases for Smart Docs.
USE CASE 1
My team currently copy/pastes requirements from Azure DevOps to Microsoft Word in order to create
documentation.
 
This takes a lot of time and is an error-prone process that we can’t rely on.
 
Using Smart Docs removes the need to copy and paste requirements to and from Microsoft Word. By
building up and maintaining your documentation in your project, you can trust that everything is always
up-to-date and ready for exporting.
USE CASE 2
My team has stopped using documentation because of the duplicate work required to create both
requirements and documents separately.
 
By using Smart Docs your team can now choose to build their requirements in Azure DevOps and drag
them into any document, or type a new requirement into their document and it will automatically show
up in your project’s backlog. As a true central source of truth model, Smart Docs will allow your team to
build everything once and use it wherever they need. Including in a document.
USE CASE 3
We only use documentation to get reviews from Stakeholders.
 
By using Smart Docs you can take advantage of the online document reviews we offer by using Smart
Docs in tandem with our Review module. If you are doing document reviews any other way you could
encounter the following obstacles.
 
  • One person is responsible for the entire review.
  • There can be multiple Stakeholders.
  • The person responsible for the review must consolidate the changes each Stakeholder would
  • like made to the document.
This produces a final document that needs to go through the approval process again.
The cycle repeats – in some cases for weeks.
 
With our document reviews, your team can collaborate and see all requested changes before a
document is altered. These changes can then be approved, and a final document created in one cycle.
 

How do I use Smart Docs?

A completed Smart Doc is an easy to navigate collection of both context sections and requirements.
Teams use Smart Docs everyday for the benefits it adds over a Microsoft Word driven process. 
Here are some of the ways your team can use Smart Docs. 
 
Make a Meta Template:
Before your team jumps head-first into Smart Docs, you will want to create a Meta Template. Meta Templates offer you the ability to construct a structure to your document. You can choose where team members can place context elements (Sections), and where they can add specific requirements in your document. This is a one-time operation and can be used with multiple documents built on the same structure.
 
Add Context to your Documents
Teams can add context to Documents by adding in a rich-text Section.
Once a Section is added to your document you can add rich text to it the same way you do in Microsoft Word.
This allows you to have free form control over the content that gets added into any given Document.
 
Create a Reusable Document Template
Many teams currently have a requirements document sitting on their Desktop which includes all the necessary elements that that document needs to include. For instance, your team might have a “BRD Template” they open which already has the Introduction, Scope, Risks, and a placeholder for Business Requirements already laid out to get started quickly. Our reusable templates offer the same ability, allowing users to quickly get started with a Document Template of their choice.
 
Add Requirements to your Documents
You can add requirements into your document in one of two different ways using Smart Docs.
  1. You can publish requirements into your Azure DevOps project simply by building onto your document. This allows you to add to your project from a document-driven workflow.
  2. You can insert requirements that are already in your project into any document.
All requirements added to documents will reflect any changes made elsewhere in the project. This means if you need to change a requirement in the backlog, those changes will already be reflected in the latest version of your document – no more need to update requirements in several places.
 
Explore Version Management
You can manage document versions easily using our built-in version management tools. Versions can be created manually or automatically depending on how you plan to use your documents. The version management tool comes complete with a Compare feature which enables you to compare any two versions of a document and see an easy to understand red-line view of the changes.
 
Have your Document Reviewed
You can send documents to Stakeholders (for free) for them to review. Using our Review module, document reviews enable all your document reviewers/approvers to collaborate in the same space. This way teams can see who has approved/rejected a work item and why. Teams can then discuss changes before any change is enacted.
 
Output Documents
Last but not least, all of the document you create in Smart Docs can be easily exported as Word, PDF, or HTML. We allow nearly limitless customization of your document when saving as Word, and provide you options to configure different attributes of a requirement to include in your report.
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Time to Read: 5 minutes

Building Non-Functional Requirements Templates

Client approval of Requirements in Azure DevOps

Building Non-Functional Requirements Templates

Eliciting, authoring, and managing non-functional requirements (NFR’s) can be a daunting and time-consuming task. Most people who read the previous sentence will likely agree.  

NFR creation can be a difficult task and creating non-functional requirements that are both quantifiable and measurable is an issue we’ve seen many teams struggle with.  

Building great non-functional requirements is however, worth the effort. 

Customizable Reports in Azure DevOps

Non-functional requirements provide teams with a means to gauge the success of a project, process, or system. They allow your team to capture measurable ways with which you can discuss, analyze, and evaluate the different attributes of your project. 

Because of the value NFR’s provide to a project, we often see teams engaging in long and complicated processes to create NFR’s that are barely meaningful or relevant at project end.  

Today, we’re going to change that. 

In this article we cover both the value of creating NFR’s, as well as show you how you can employ some simple tools and techniques to reduce the time required for quality NFR creation. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Why Are Non-Functional Requirements Worth Building?

Non-functional requirements provide your team with all of the success measures of a product, project, system, process, or application. When a good non-functional requirement is created, a team will be able to not only identify if a project is successful but will also be able to easily identify how far from success a project might be.  

Great non-functional requirements can be instrumental to a project’s success in many different ways aside from being a success measure. NFR’s can help teams understand the overall goals of a project, help align the project’s outcome with business goals, and much more.  

Suffice it to say that quality NFR’s can contribute greatly to project success, and the way we evaluate that success. But that doesn’t mean they are easy to manage, elicit, or author.  

Let’s take a look at the primary technique teams use today to build better non-functional requirements faster.  

The Primary Technique for Building Better Non-Functional Requirements Faster - Templates

When building non-functional requirements, teams implement templates in order to create these work items more quickly with greater consistency.

By definition, a template is anything that serves as a model which others can copy and reuse.  

Typically, templates are created as a pre-set format for a document, file, or simply the format every NFR can be created using. Once implemented, the format provided by a template does not need to be recreated every time it is needed, and users can simply pull up a template and get started quickly.  

This leads us to the most obvious benefits of using non-functional requirements templates.  

Templates save time and increase consistency! 

When teams begin building a repeatable process, they often turn to templates in order to remove the need to constantly recreate document or file formats. Instead, reusing the same pieces of a document, file, or structure as a template allows your team to reduce rework and capitalize on the benefits of greater consistency. 

While time being saved and consistency being increased are great direct benefits that templates provide, there are many not so obvious indirect benefits that templates provide as well.  

The Indirect Benefits of Non-Functional Requirements Templates

The largest indirect benefit from using templates is the ability to create a simple to follow, structured approach to building files, documents, and requirements.  

By providing a templated structure, users who interact with a given file or document have an easier time identifying where to input each specific piece information, and what format that piece of information should adhere to.  

This type of direction not only improves the accuracy of the content of being worked on, but also reduces the time required for NFR creation, document reviews, and requirement approvals. This is in part since supplying a template also increases standardization and use familiarity with the asset being created. 

Templates create a two-fold level of simplicity in regard to NFR work items. Building the work item is simplified as data just needs to be input within the correct fields of the template. Additionally,  the template presents information in a more consumable fashion once the work item is built.

 As the process becomes simpler, it also becomes more approachable.  This means templates also make NFR’s and their documentation easier to create for new, or less familiar, Business Analysts. 

This discussion of templates, however, might have already started to give off a sense ambiguity. 

Are we talking about employing templates for documents?  

Are we talking about employing templates for NFR creation? 

Are we talking about employing templates that outline the properties of an NFR? 

Put simply, yes. 

A non-functional requirements template could be used in any of these areas to bolster your non-functional requirements authoring, elicitation, and management. 

 
An NFR template might be used to organize and manage NFRs, help a team with document creation, or even in the actual construction of NFR’s.  

 
If you’re looking for a simple method to construct high quality NFR’s, check out our Two Simple Steps to Creating Non-functional Requirements article found here! 

Whichever way your team uses templates to build NFR’s, you can rest assured that building non-functional requirements yields an incredible return and can be done faster and easier than ever before. 

Properly Equipping Your BA’s With Elicitation Templates

Requirements elicitation, or the gathering of requirements, has never been a simple process. It is however, something that many people encounter every day in the work place.  
 
For example, if someone asks you to build or complete something you might ask some questions. What should this thing do (functional requirement), and how should this thing be in terms of security, usability, or accessibility (non-functional requirement).  

A well-equipped business analysts (BA) will similarly ask questions that are designed to tease out the necessary functional and non-functional requirements of any project, process, or system. BA’s primarily use questions as their medium of engagement with Stakeholders. Through this type of close collaboration with Stakeholders, BAs create a forum that helps Stakeholders express what it is they want from their product.  

During a conversation with a BA, a Stakeholder will express what features they want and what their product should do (functional requirements) as well as how they want the user experience to feel (non-functional requirements).  

BA’s often employ several time-tested elicitation techniques when engaging with Stakeholders. During the elicitation process some of these techniques might include: 

  • questionnaires 
  • mind-map brainstorming  
  • use cases creation 
  • document creation and review
  • and more… 

Each of these techniques have two things in common.  

  1. First, they all are used for the elicitation of requirements.  
  1. Second, each of these techniques can capitalize on the use of templates.

Let’s think about how questionnaires can benefit from becoming, or using, templates. 

We know that to elicit the proper requirements, the proper questions must be asked.  
This is where the knowledge of a veteran BA becomes a greater asset, as they have been through the elicitation process numerous times. They have the benefit of experience and may know better which questions to ask in relation to specific industries, products, or technologies.  

This experience and knowledge can be easily captured with a non-functional requirement questionnaire template. Experienced BAs can compile well-thought-out question lists or question templates that will focus on specific functions (FRs) or system attributes (NFRs), and passively guide the team’s elicitation process even if they are not directly involved.  

These questionnaire templates can then provide structure and consistency to the elicitation process, ensure the correct questions are being asked, and also reduce the likelihood of important questions being missed.   

There are plenty of examples where templates can help teams benefit from the knowledge they already have within their team. 

Let’s look at more examples of how templates are being used today in different elicitation and authoring tasks.  

Why Teams Have Historically Used Tables as Requirements Templates

Many teams continue to implement non-functional requirement templates in the form of a table to author and house requirements. 

The use of tables typically stems from the needs of users to organize and maintain their requirements in one place.  Before the use of explicit Requirements Management tools, table were used to help define naming and numbering conventions, to help track and trace requirements, as well as help by providing fields for any number of properties. 

Tables have historically worked well as templates as they are simple to organize and make it easy to manage the content within the table. Tables have traditionally held the added benefit of providing an approach to export the information from a table to other areas such as document creation.  

What is that export approach? Copy and paste.  

For teams that use tables as templates, the requirements typically get copy and pasted from a table and are then inserted into a document. Typically, the requirement is copy and pasted field by individual field into a template designed specifically for the document (another example of templating!).  

But while tables used to be a robust solution for managing requirements that contain a variety of fields, they have some significant downfalls in today’s world of explicit RM tools. 

Tables are often disconnected compilations of important information and can often be siloed off from other tools and processes. Often this results in tables becoming an extra step in your RM process, and extra asset that someone has to take ownership of to manage, update, and maintain.  

But this doesn’t have to be the case.  

With Microsoft’s Excel Team tab extension, teams can easily connect the tables they have used in the past with their Azure DevOps project. They can easily map every requirement field, property, and identifier to the Azure DevOps work item that gets created in their project. 

But how does Azure DevOps help with NFR’s? 

How Does Azure DevOps Handle Non-Functional Requirements?

First, Azure DevOps is flexible.  

Microsoft’s ALM platform allows you to easily add any types of work items your team needs to a project.  

Non-functional requirements are just one of the work item types you can add to a project.  

What is a “work item type”?  

Work items are an ADO-based authoring template for the type of requirement they represent.  

Some examples are functional requirements, transitional requirements, user stories, or even non-functional requirements. Whatever taxonomy your project requires, Azure DevOps will support it and each of the work items you create will have their own set of properties, states, and relationships which can be chosen and customized. 

With a non-functional requirement, you can configure any fields or property that your team requires to help with the management of your project. As mentioned previously, mapping the requirements you already have in a table is simple with the Microsoft Teams tab Excel extension [provide link].  

But what can you do with NFR’s once they are in Azure DevOps (ADO), and how does migrating the creation of NFR’s to ADO help your team? 

Let’s look at the tools.  

Modern Requirements4DevOps: Smart Docs – Customizable NFR Document Templates

The creation of documents depends on an organization’s policies, processes, expectations, and requirements of the stakeholders, and can even be built to house your non-functional requirements. 

Documents provide an easy way to create accountability for meeting the agreed upon requirements for a project. They afford a level of security for the stakeholders as documents can act as a checklist for agreed upon requirements, which can easily be cross-referenced to determine if stakeholders are getting what they paid for or if work was not completed. 

Another major benefit of proper documentation is that requirements often evolve throughout a project’s lifecycle. A requirement might become more clearly defined later in its life, or it might simply evolve in a manner that yields a different expectation of your product.  

Queue the addition of non-functional requirement documents to your process. 

As requirements evolve, so too will the expectations for your project. This means the success indicators of your project, a.k.a. non-functional requirements, will have to be reviewed and changed.  

Using our Smart Docs module of the Modern Requirements4DevOps suite, a user can easily construct a fully versionable requirements document directly from their Azure DevOps project. This means users can easily make, and track changes to requirements from a user-friendly document interface.  

New requirements can also be easily created in your project from within a document’s interface, or you can choose to insert existing requirements directly into your document. This means you can easily drag/drop your non-functional requirements directly into an easily exportable document without leaving Azure DevOps and without a need for copy/paste.  

Let’s extend the idea of importing your existing NFR’s that live in tables into Azure DevOps, and then cover how you can turn these NFR’s into documents using Modern Requirements.  

First you import into Azure DevOps your non-functional requirements from your table using the Microsoft Team tab extension for Excel. Then you simply query all non-functional requirements and drag/drop them into your document.  

It’s that simple.  

But let’s say you now want to add structure to a document so that non-functional requirements can only be added in specific areas of the document.  

We support that too! 

There is a template designer built directly within the Smart Docs module, that helps you dictate what work item types are allowed where in your documents. This means anyone building a document, NFR-based or otherwise, can easily adhere to the structure your template provides and create consistent documentation. 

Modern Requirements4DevOps: Smart Docs – Reusable NFR Document Templates

Reusable document templates are an asset to any team.  In fact, you likely already use these today.  

A reusable document template provides your team with an already populated document that lays out what a document should look like. This type of template helps authors easily figure out where specific information should go, and what contextual elements should make up the document created.  

Think about that Word document you already have on your Desktop. It likely already has a placeholder for things like Introductions, Scope, Goals, as well as where you should put specific requirements. This is a reusable document template.  

The main reason document templates are used is to increase efficiency and cut down on rework within the document manufacturing process.  

Luckily for teams who currently use multiple applications for their RM and documenting processes, there is a solution that can be used for both. Modern Requirements with Azure DevOps.  

The reusable document templates you create with Modern Requirements + Azure DevOps, can be configured to hold any field or property you need to show within your document. You can save any document as a reusable document template, which can automatically populate fields such as Introduction, Goals, NFR Requirements, and more. 

You can build documents in just a few clicks that can help your team get started quickly when building any sort of documentation! This means your team can benefit not only from your documents and requirements living in the same space, but also increase efficiency, create structure, increase accuracy, and create consistency within your document creation process.   

Modern Requirements4DevOps: FAQ Module – Customizable and Reusable Questionnaire Templates

Non-functional requirements are much more abstract than their functional counterparts.  

This makes them harder to draw out as you’re not simply pointing at the system and telling it what to do, instead you are asking questions about how the system should be and using NFR’s to represent that. 

As discussed earlier in this article building strong NFRs are based on asking the right questions.  

So, what if you are new to requirements management or have little experience? Where do you start? MR4DevOps addresses this situation with our comprehensive FAQ module.  

The FAQ module is a series of focused question templates directed at specific system attributes which are categorized by the three primary aspects of the product; operational, revisional, and transitional.  

Additionally, the FAQ module contains question templates for the elicitation of NFR for compliance and risk based medical device development. As users answer the questions from the template, they automatically create a non-functional requirement directly into the Backlog. 

The questionnaire templates included in the FAQ module are beneficial to BAs with all levels of experience. Veteran BAs can modify existing lists by adding their own questions or create their own question list from scratch. By doing so, BA’s are able to capture their experience and knowledge of the elicitation process and pass it along to other members of the team.  

Modern Requirements4DevOps: Smart Report – Configurable Report Templates

MR4DevOps provides a great solution to one of ADO’s major oversights; the lack of an integrated reporting tool.  

When using tools like FAQ, or Smart Docs, to author and manage your non-functional requirements, Smart Report will be the tool that you use to output your requirements. Smart Report allows you to output requirements as PDF, HTML, or Microsoft Word where you can apply your own predesigned header/footer and even Table of Contents or title page as well.  

Looking to make a report for your project’s NFRs?  

The Smart Report tool is equipped with an advanced report template designer. The template designer allows you to build and save custom report templates based on work item type. This enables you to build a unique NFR template that shows whichever properties and fields of an NFR that you wish to include in the report; this information is pulled directly from the work item! 

This template can be applied to any group of selected or queried NFRs and used whenever you are required by your reporting process. The benefit of the reporting tool is it empowers you with the ability to create instant, structured, and consistent requirements reports. 

Interested in Seeing for Yourself?

Modern Requirements4DevOps offers several solutions to assist with the elicitation, authoring, and management of non-functional requirements. 

Would you like to have a closer look into designing templates with Modern Requirements or interested in finding out what other tools can improve your process? Book a product demonstration today!

Experience for yourself how our Modern Requirements toolbox can empower Microsoft’s industry leading Azure DevOps into a single application requirements management solution.

Head over to www.modernrequirements.com to learn more about our company and products.

Author: Dane Crawford
Time to Read: 5 minutes
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Creating Non-Functional Requirements Documents

Client approval of Requirements in Azure DevOps

Creating Non-Functional Requirements Documents

In this article you will explore documenting non-functional requirements with the goal of building an understanding of what documentation is and why we build documents.

What is a Non-Functional Requirements Document?

Documentation is an important part of the requirements management process. The purpose of a document is to output specific information about a project to be shared with stakeholders. Like many aspects of requirements management, documentation isn’t a standardized process. Teams approach documentation in several ways. How, when, and which documents are implemented within a process varies from team to team.  If documentation is part of your process however, you’ll likely create a variety of document types and revisions to these documents over the lifetime of a project. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

The main purpose of documentation is to inform. However, documentation has some indirect advantages. For instance, documentation provides accountability. Documents are an easy way to create accountability for yourself to meet the requirements that were agreed upon. From the stakeholder’s standpoint, documentation adds a level of security as these documents act as a checklist for agreed upon requirements. Documentation can be used to verify if work was not completed or if they are being delivered what was paid for.

Another advantage to documentation is it allows teams to monitor the scope of requirements throughout the life of a project. Over the lifespan of a project requirements evolve. An individual requirement, for example, might become more clearly defined later in its life. As documents are recreated or updated over the course of the project, requirements can be compared between document versions. This enables members of a team to identify requirements that may be deviating from their original scope.

There is no standardized document that is built specifically for non-functional requirements. However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t build non-functional requirement specific documentation within your own process. Instead, non-functional requirements are typically included within a larger document type.

Several requirements documents exist which are built to highlight specific details of a project. For example, documents can be built for business requirements (BRD), technical requirements (TRD), and numerous other aspects of requirements management.

In relation to the documentation process, non-functional requirements are usually included within functional requirements documents (FRD), product requirements documents (PRD), and software requirements specifications (SRS) documents.

 

Document Types

Let’s take a basic look at a few of the document types listed above that include non-functional requirements to develop a better understanding of why these documents are created.

Functional Requirements Document (FRD)

The Functional Requirements Document is a formal Statement of an application’s functional requirements. An FRD is typically complied by a business analyst based on several interactions with clients and stakeholders with the goal of requirements elicitation. The creation of the FRD is conducted under the supervision of the Project Manager. 

Non-functional requirements are typically found within their own section in an FRD. This section usually follows the functional requirements and will be labeled “non-functional requirements”. However, in some documents non-functional requirements may be categorized by system attributes (such as ‘Operational Requirements’) or listed under terms like ‘Non-Business’ requirements.  

  • Essentially a “contract” between product/system developer and client
  • Developers are held accountable to the requirements in the document
  • Demonstrates the value of product/system in terms of business objectives and processes
  • Leaves no room for anyone to assume anything which is not stated
  • What the application should do NOT how it works
  • No reference to specific technologies

Product Requirements Document (PRD)

The Product Requirements Document is typically composed by the Project Manager.  The PRD is used to communicate to the testing and development teams what functionalities are required to be in a product release.

Keep in mind the differences between functional and non-functional requirements. Non-functional requirements do no direct a product in terms of what the product should do. They address product attributes which determine how a product feels and other technical specifications that contribute to user experience. Product Requirements Documents are granular. The intent of these documents is to provide the overall direction for the product. Therefore, functional and non-functional requirements are addressed within their own sections of a PRD.

  • Establishes a product’s purpose, features, capabilities, and how it behaves
  • Defines user profiles, goals, and tasks
  • Drives the product teams’ efforts related to sales, marketing, and support
  • Product functionality addressed in document is supported by use cases
  • Serves as the document of record that a release is based on

System Requirements Specification (SRS)

A System Requirements Specifications document is created to illustrate and describe the features and behaviors of software or a system. In most cases, SRS documents are written by System Architects or Product Owners who are experts in the domain. However, during the initial requirements gathering process Product Owners work alongside clients.

Non-functional requirements are once again found within their own section within the System Requirements Specifications document.

  • Describes the functionality the product needs to fulfill all stakeholders/business/user needs
  • Acts as a basis for all teams involved in development to follow
  • Provide a basis for estimating costs, risks, and development scheduling
  • Built to assess requirements before the more specific system design stages with a goal of reducing rework
  • Contains critical information related to: development, QA, operations, and maintenance.
  • Acts as a development checklist; helps to inform decisions about product lifecycle (the need for change to existing requirements to meet user/whatever needs)
  • Prevent project failure

Why Include Non-Functional Requirements in Documents?

The real issue with the documentation process in requirements management is lack of standardization. Certain document types are more common than others. However, the structure and contents of these documents vary from team to team. Additionally, teams always have the option of approaching documentation on an ad hoc basis. As mentioned earlier, a team could approach documenting non-functional requirements within their own specific document.

The lack of standardization seems like a benefit that provides flexibility within the documentation process. Unfortunately, there are some negatives to this flexibility. Lack of standardization can result in non-inclusion of work items. Regarding non-functional requirements this can be detrimental to a products success as they define a products user experience.

To put this into perspective, consider a situation where you have tried two similar products. There is a good chance that you found you liked one of the two products better even though both products performed their intended functions. This is very likely because the product you gravitated to has a better user experience. User experience is driven by non-functional requirements. Building non-functional requirements that are well-defined, measurable, and testable allows teams to quickly and definitively measure the success of any project.

By including non-functional requirements within documentation provides these requirements greater visibility to be reviewed and refined. This visibility can also influence the creation and evolution of functional requirements within your document.

How Can Modern Requirements4DevOps Help Manage Non-Functional Requirements Within Documents?

FRD Cover
FRD 2
FRD 3
FRD 4
FRD 5

Modern Requirement’s Smart Docs tool allows users to build the framework of their requirements documents directly within their Azure DevOps environment. When building a Smart Doc, requirements including non-functional requirements, can be inserted into the Smart Doc directly from the project Backlog.  Additionally, non-functional requirements can be authored on-the-fly when building a Smart Doc.

Smart Docs is also equipped with a full version management tool that empowers users with the ability to version their Smart Doc at any time. Using version management, changes to work items like non-functional requirements can be tracked by comparing versions and exported as change forms.

Review management is also integrated within the Smart Docs tool. Modern Requirements4DevOps provides a single application review solution that promotes collaboration within the team to review and revise work items. By initiating reviews, team members and stakeholders can critically review work items. Regarding non-functional requirements specifically, reviews are a critical component of the management process as these work items can be used to gauge a project’s success. Being able to conduct reviews seamlessly alongside document creation promotes a strong workflow focused on building well-defined requirements.

Is lack of standardization within your own documentation process problematic? Smart Docs provides a solution to this industry wide issue with the ability to create reusable document templates. Using the Meta Template Designer tool, Smart Docs users can customize the structure of their documents. By building a customized structure for your document, users can decide what work items can be included and where they can appear within their document. Structured, reusable document templates enforce consistency and promotes efficiency (reducing document rework) within your team’s documentation process. 

Interested in Seeing for Yourself?

With Modern Requirements4DevOps you can build requirements documents directly from within your Azure DevOps environment. Check out this Functional Requirements Document built with Smart Docs!

Experience for yourself how our Modern Requirements toolbox can empower Microsoft’s industry leading Azure DevOps into a single application requirements management solution.

Try Modern Requirements in the cloud here.

Author: Dane Crawford
Time to Read: 5 minutes
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