Website project management-how to analyze requirements

Preface

With the continuous development of technology and the increasing functional requirements of users for websites, the design of website projects can no longer be simply implemented using static Html files, compared with the free creation of one or two web designers for website design in the past few years, the design and development of website projects are more and more like a software project and more complicated, the Design and Development of website projects have entered an era where processes and division of labor need to be emphasized. A standardized, effective, and robust development mechanism can be established to adapt to the changing needs of users, achieve the expected planning objectives.

Website project management (WPM) refers to WebbasedProjectManagement, that is, project design and management based on the architecture of Web applications as the main manifestation, such an architecture includes key subjects such as browsers, networks, and Web servers, it is mainly reflected in website design and Web application development with a browser as the client (such as information websites, online stores, virtual post offices, and customer relationship management .) And other projects.

In this article, the author compares the website project management (WPM) with the software engineering Unified Process Management (RUP) for reference, and combined with practical work experience, strive to manage the website project (WPM) the roles, division of labor, and procedures of the project are described completely, so that the website project management is gradually standardized.

Based on my experience, website project management can be controlled in the following seven stages:
1. Demand Analysis and change management
2. Project model and Business Process Analysis
3. System Analysis and Software Modeling
4. interface design, interaction design and program development
5. system testing and documentation
6. customer training, technical support and after-sales service
It should be noted that although these stages have a certain degree of continuity, they are not completely isolated. For example, demand change management, testing, and document writing all run through the entire project process, A lot of jobs are performed at or at the same time.

How can we analyze requirements and manage changes?

The communication between the salesman and the customer and the requirement analysis report are the foundation of the project. The project is centered on the customer's needs, rather than the technical needs.
This chapter includes the following:
1. Let the customer speak freely and list all the requirements
2. analyze potential needs through Phenomena
3. Use natural language to describe the project model
4. Use and chart to present users' needs.
5. Who should look at the demand analysis report?
6. Create a requirement change log and create a new requirement analysis report.
VII. Key roles in this phase
8. Summary

I. allow customers to speak freely and list all their needs

Let the user clarify all ideas as much as possible and list all requirements. At this time, we should not be afraid to "Seduce" the potential needs of customers and increase the workload of design and development, so as to be dragged into the quarary by the endless changes of customers in the future, directly and clearly list the problems and requirements with the customer, and put the organization, induction, and analysis aside, the first step is completed by accurately recording the most primitive and complete requirements of users.

Obviously, if the customer's requirements are incomplete, unexpected changes may occur at any time, and even the changes may damage the model and structure, this project is doomed to fail from the very beginning. For example, if all the functions of the site are implemented, there is no problem in local testing, however, you do not know that the customer's system is subject to access from 1 million independent IP addresses every day. What you think is amazing is the access traffic from 10 thousand independent IP addresses, A slightly experienced developer will understand that such a design is a disaster. All applications, servers, databases, and programs must be re-developed!

2. analyze potential needs through Phenomena

In many cases, customers are not professionals. They cannot expect them to help us sort out the key points and technical difficulties in their endless descriptions. This requires us to analyze, summarize, and organize the customers, in particular, there are not many customers talking about, but they are technically difficult to achieve and the intensity is very high.

Customers often have vague requirements. Most of the time, the requirements are general and difficult to control the scale. This requires the business staff to listen to the customer's detailed description, help the customer to organize and analyze, and predict the potential needs of the customer to make changes during the development process and to make changes and upgrades in future applications.

For example, when designing an Office Automation System for the customer, it is necessary to reserve a channel for the customer to interact with their business units in the future; when designing the email system, you may need to consider the need for advertising management servers; when designing online electronic stores, you may need to increase inventory product inventory statistics and analysis in the future; limited by time and financial resources, the customer is generally able to accept the development process implemented in stages. In the demand analysis, the customer is expected to change the requirements in the future in advance, in addition to making the project development more smooth, it also laid a better foundation for further business development in the future.

I was responsible for the design of a large news website. When the customer took a design requirement report of nearly 50 pages, I found that forty pages of content were repeated for program development, in the corner of one page, a button "Search for news related to other websites" is displayed without any instructions, the work completed by just these 10 words is completely topped by the rest of the 40 pages to repeat the work done. The customer does not know that the problem caused by this requirement is actually the development of a search engine, after negotiation, the customer agreed to change it to the intra-site search engine.

Iii. Use natural language to describe the project model

The requirement analysis written when the salesman communicates with the customer and investigates the customer, which should be described in natural language as much as possible. Although the customer's level and qualifications are different, however, the most natural description allows all members of the Project to clearly understand the meaning of the requirement and avoid deviations in understanding. For customers, such a model description is the most realistic, easy to participate in the revision, and can be used as a basis for testing and acceptance.

Compare the following two requirements,
"When you access the home page, you can click the 'customer channel' button to pop up the window for entering the 'username 'and 'Password'. after entering the correct information, you can open the home page of the customer channel in the new window, this page displays the navigation bar of all available features and the list of the latest reading news links"
"Websites are divided into two states: public and encrypted. The authentication mechanism enables unique users to access encrypted information and provides functions different from those of common users. "
The previous sections describe what we can easily imagine the website that has been designed, and the subsequent sections describe countless different versions, which may lead to ambiguity in understanding the requirements.

4. Use and chart to present users' needs.

Demand Analysis is abstract regardless of the text. After all, it is difficult for the customer to understand the requirements. It is most intuitive and effective to produce the basic requirements.

There are many ways to create a table. It is feasible to use a PowerPoint or Visio workflow and an Html document to create an interface. The simplest method is to use drawing and Word tables, the key is to use the customer's needs and systems to be designed soon. Before System Analysis and program development, both parties can have an intuitive understanding of the products to be completed in the future. In other words, that is, when the product has not actually entered the development stage, both parties reach a unified opinion on the results of the work, which will greatly reduce the troubles caused by demand changes, at the same time, the customer is more likely to participate in the project development process to ensure that the project is in the correct direction.

The following is a description in the RUP:
"Starting with movies, cartoons, pictures, tables, and cartoons, we can tell users who they are, what they are going to do, and how they happen.
Helps collect and improve user needs in a user-friendly manner.
Encourage more creative and innovative design solutions.
Encourage the team to review and avoid features that are not desired by everyone.
Ensure that features are implemented in an understandable and intuitive manner.
Make the interview process easier and avoid the problem of no interview results.
Simply put, production is to use tools to explain (sometimes animated Demonstration) how the system adapts to the needs of the Organization and shows how the system works. The coordinator presents the initial dashboard to the group and provides comments to the group members. Later, during the seminar period, the presentation board was also "real-time" evolution. Therefore, you need a drawing tool that allows you to easily change the dashboard. To avoid distracting attention, it is generally better to use simple tools, such as tables, whiteboards, or PowerPoint. "

V. Who should refer to the requirement analysis report?

Project managers, system analysts, development managers, Interaction designers, testers, document personnel, and customer representatives should all view the requirement analysis, discuss the requirements together, and reach an agreement.

We often encounter projects that business personnel have worked hard to talk about, but it is difficult for developers to implement. However, products designed by technical personnel are often not recognized by customers, and even have disputes, therefore, all participants in the project development team should have a clear and unified understanding of this requirement, provide comments on the requirement according to their work, and revise the requirement through communication with the customer, finally, determine the project implementation objectives.

For example:
Only through requirement analysis can the project manager set up the required team, including configuring the work environment and developing the development cycle.
The development cycle restrictions and functional requirements may affect the programming languages and tools used by programmers;
The skill level of operating users will affect the precision of Interaction designers in front-end design;
The interface designer determines the presentation mode based on the nature and positioning of the project.
Only after the tester understands the test environment and conditions can the project quality be tracked and tested;
The following table shows the workflow of changing roles based on requirements:

6. Create a requirement change log and create a new requirement analysis report.

Although we have made a lot of effort to make the most possible effort in demand analysis, it is almost certain that this demand analysis will change in the development process, it may be due to customer omissions, or it may be triggered during the development process. Such changes are sometimes so frequent and trivial, as a result, changes cannot be reported to all roles of the project in a timely manner, so it is very important to make a good requirement change log.

The change log is attached to the demand analysis, and the modified demand analysis is made into a new version. The updated version is retained instead of overwritten, in this way, it is easier to track the work adjustments brought about by the demand change process.

In the demand analysis of the new version, multiple parts of the changes are displayed in special mode, and multiple details of the changes are recorded in the log.
For more information about demand analysis and change management, see:

7. Key roles in this phase

In the process of requirement analysis and change management, the most labor-intensive roles are customer representatives, sales personnel, and project managers.

The customer Representative puts forward the demand, the salesman helps sort out and analyze, and the Project Manager evaluates the entire project.

In actual work, the cause of many project failures is related to requirement analysis. Customer representatives and salesmen are usually not technical developers. When discussing requirements, they often fail to grasp the technical difficulty, workload, and time schedule of the project, at this time, the Project Manager or technical personnel are required to consult the staff.

In order to reduce project risks and improve work efficiency, it is necessary to design a standardized demand management plan to help customer representatives and salesmen better complete their tasks. The following is a requirement management plan template for reference:

8. Summary

Based on the author's experience, it is possible to do a good job of requirement analysis as soon as possible to master the following key points:
Listen carefully to list all customer requirements;
Analyze the requirements and confirm the operable system model;
Use the most natural language to describe the system so that every developer will not disagree;
Quickly determine the Website user role;
For example, visitors, members, important customers, front-end administrators, website administrators, and sales personnel;
Analyze and determine the permissions and operational functions of each role;
For example, members can view special information, modify personal information, and log out;
The front-end administrator can log on to the management system, publish, edit, and modify information, and review member qualifications;
The website administrator can modify the topic and website interface;
Create a flowchart and present the requirements;
Allows customers to participate in the design and promptly and correctly respond to demand changes.
Create requirement change logs, retain the upgraded version, and manage requirements through version control;
The requirement management plan allows each participant to view the common goal