ASPE Technology Training Information: Planning and Facilitating Requirements Workshops

COURSE 2300 | 2-DAY SESSION
Designing and Facilitating JAD Workshops

A comprehensive hands-on guide to conducting JAD/group sessions that effectively and rapidly elicit real-world requirements

What is a JAD Workshop?
JAD (Joint Application Development) sessions, are structured meetings of business and systems representatives for the purpose of defining business requirements and deciding other aspects of proposed systems. Using a structured approach, visual aids, and language that is very much the customers’, JAD Workshops extract high-quality business requirements specifications in a compressed time frame. The participants are focused, the process is facilitated, and the result is greatly enhanced understanding for all those involved.

Why are Requirements Workshops (JAD Sessions) Beneficial?
From the customers’ viewpoint, the focus of an effective JAD Workshop is on the“what” and not the“how” of what their system must do and be. The session results in consensus and clarity about the requirements. From a developer’s viewpoint, the session outputs—the models, definitions, and process descriptions produced—comprise a clear, unambiguous specification of the customers’ business requirements.

What are the benefits of Facilitative Techniques?
Capers Jones, Chief Scientist Emeritus of Artemis Management Systems and Software Productivity Research, has studied JAD Workshops. He concluded that such workshops:

Reduce scope creep from 80% to 10%
Increase delivery speed of early phases by 30-40%
Increase function points by 40-85%
Result in 5% to 15% overall savings in time and effort for entire project

In-Class Workshops and Group Exercises:
Effective facilitation is easy to watch but harder to do. No matter how well you know your agenda and meeting plans, it requires specialized skills to stay on topic, handle disruption, keep people on task, and achieve consensus. Planning the mechanics of a Requirements Workshop requires additional attention and knowledge of requirements gathering, idea generation, and information capture. You will learn all the tips, tricks and shortcuts used by world-class organizations to accelerate information gathering. Specifically, you will:

Learn how to build meeting structures that avoid most pitfalls.
Deal with the difficult people and problems that plague meetings.
Use creative techniques to mine participants’ knowledge.
Employ deft techniques to obtain consensus.
Extract, document and prioritize requirements efficiently in group settings
Maximize effectiveness and make the best use of business customers' time through skillful techniques.

20 Immediate Benefits of Taking This Class

Learn techniques for skillful facilitation.
Effectively coordinate and organize meetings for maximum productivity.
Extract information in a variety of ways - brainstorming, cardstorming, categorization, etc.
Minimize the probability of scope creep.
Greatly collapse calendar time for requirements gathering.
Apply the techniques to improve a variety of other types of meetings.
Use facilitative techniques in group settings to build Context Diagrams, Class Diagrams, Use Cases, and Entity Relationship Diagrams.
Learn different methods for prioritizing requirements in a group setting.
Learn the simple, mechanical techniques of capturing information easily and correctly.
Avoid pitfalls to ensure active participation of all parties in a session.
Appreciate the flexibility and usability of Post-It™ notes in solving problems.
Identify viable solutions to complex problems.
Understand how to assist the business in relevant activities beyond requirements.
Use a variety of tools to solve problems.
Keep energy and interest high during meetings that last several hours or days
Use effective questioning and listening skills to extract requirements
Learn how to apply the facilitative approach to other processes such as strategic planning, lessons learned, and planning.
Build high-level plans in a group setting easily and accurately.
Evaluate alternative approaches and reach consensus.
Learn innovative techniques to improve requirements development quality.

ASPE has been reviewed and approved as a CPE training provider for the National Assoication of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA). 12 CPEs are awarded upon full completion of Designing and Facilitating JAD Workshops.