PMCP 7206 - Defining and Managing Project Requirements

Course Description

In today’s ever-changing world, complexity is unavoidable. Whether you are engaged in formal project work or you are accountable for creating policies, improving operational performance, launching a new product, good or service, or creating solutions that drive organizational change, your success is highly dependent on well-defined and understood business requirements, product requirements, and specifications. Investments in requirements processes have proven to be key contributors to success in any endeavour.

This online class focuses on the requirements management process. Using an exercise taken from a real-life project, participants will learn how to define the problem, assess its business impact, and identify and manage stakeholders’ expectations. Participants will use elicitation tools and techniques to discover the underlying requirements that contribute to deliverable solutions that produce desired outcomes. Through the use of techniques for clarifying expected deliverables and discovering overlooked requirements, participants will be better prepared to work on projects characterized by uncertainty and high levels of change. This instructor-led class will cover requirements verification, traceability and change management techniques for both predictive and agile project environments. Participants will discover different ways to present requirements to stakeholders to maximize comprehension and encourage feedback.

This is one of three elective courses in Level II of the Accelerated Project Management Certificate.

Learner Outcomes

Participants will gain practical skills to:

Utilize an enterprise requirements management framework and processes
Identify impacted stakeholders and discover and define their real problems
Realize and uncover real requirements using various methods and tools
Create appropriate questions to ask in surveys, interviews, job shadowing, and JAD sessions
Discover functional requirements that deliver business value
Document requirements clearly using standard formats, including user stories and use cases
Analyze, verify, and validate requirements
Refine, manage, and control changes to requirements
Use a hierarchical solution selection process to build a foundation for future requirements
Conduct financial analysis of proposed solution(s) to maximize benefits realization
Prioritize, select and present the best requirements solutions to problems/opportunities
Transfer a practical requirements management methodology back to the workplace

Notes

This course is offered in partnership with Procept Associates Ltd.

Learners will require access to a computer with high-speed internet access. Learners will be sent a Zoom link approximately one week prior to the start of the course.

Active participation (at least 80% attendance) and successful completion of learning activities is required to successfully complete the course.

Prerequisites

To ensure successful completion of this course, it is expected that learners will have:

Completed the Project Management Essentials class
Basic computer skills
English language proficiency
Some post-secondary education (strongly recommended)

If you have significant project management experience or a have completed a course in Project Management at a recognized institution then a Prior Learning Assessment may be considered for exemption of the Project Management Essentials prerequisite. Contact continue@uwindsor.ca for more details.