- An Investment Story
- Investing in Requirements
- Return on Investment
- Investment Risks
- What to Invest In?
- To Invest or Not to Invest
- Investing in Requirements
- Size of Requirements
- The Value of Requirements
- Reusing Requirements
- What Do I Do Right Now?
- What's the Least I Can Get Away With?
- Additional References for Requirements Value
Size of Requirements
In Figure 2.2 we use "Investment" as an axis of the diagram. This refers to the amount of the investment that you are about to make. The investment amount can be an amount of money or an amount of effort. Alternatively, you can also think of the size of the business area you are about to study.
When you think of an investment amount, an obvious correlation occurs between effort and money. But also a relationship exists between the size and complexity of the work area (or product) and the effort needed to determine the requirements. In Chapter 8—Measuring Requirements we talk about measuring the size or functionality of the work area.
The amount of investment follows the size of the task. But it can be reduced by factors such as:
- The experience of the analytical team
- Availability of the stakeholders
- Experience of the stakeholders
- Extent of the documentation of current work
- Existence of reusable requirements
- Skill and involvement of the testing team
- A template that has been customized for the organization
- Other factors unique to your organization
The point we wish to stress is you must know the size of your investment before proceeding. When we talk about the value of requirements we are really talking about ROI. Naturally, it is crucial you know with a fair degree of accuracy how much you have to spend before calculating any return.