Why use Requisite pro
It is a tool to
organize and prioritize requirements and helps to establish
Tracebility, dependability and
suspect relationship between requirements.
It promotes
communication and collaboration between members of a team.
How do you do usecase, sequence, activity
diagrams
We do them in viseo,
rational rose. They provide tools to model requirements visually.
Why we use use-case for projects
We use use-cases as they
help us to understand the functionality of the system.
They model visually the
sequence of actions that a system performs.
What
is your normal approach to do business analysis job
I follow standard methodologies of RUP
I use multiple ways of communicating and
documenting requirements.
I use and integrate use cases throughout the
lifecycle.
How
do you handle user change request
I always suggest handling user request
(requirement) changes in a controlled manner, for example, after users review
and sign-off all the requirements, any change request must first get created in
ClearQuest so we can track and review the changes. Throughout the life cycle, I
also track requirement changes in RequisitePro.
I will communicate with the business user –
why they need change.
I will do an impact analysis to see following
and present results to the PM and user managers.
The analysis will tell us if
·
This
feature is out of scope of the project
·
The
project is doable but could cost project delays and cost overruns
·
It
can be delivered on time and is doable.
Tell us something about your role and the
last project you worked on.
I have been working as a Business analyst
The last project I worked for was in Commerce
bank.
The scope of the project was to automate the
loan life cycle process in which:
The client wanted to have an automated and
integrated system that would address all aspects from application by a customer
to loan closure.
The system was to be based on a web based
application. The various steps in loan
lifecycle were understood and the required functions included risk management
and monitoring capabilities.
The project lasted 12 months and we
successfully deployed it in December last year and obtained approval from the
users.
What was your responsibility in this project.
.I had a wide range of responsibilities in
his project
o
I
worked with the PM to decide upon the best methodology for the project and the
best approach for requirement gathering
o
I
was the primary liaison between the business users and the development team.
o
I
collected, documented and managed business requirements
o
I
performed requirement analysis and gap analysis.
o
Developed
use case and functional specification documents
o
Developed
supplementary specification (non-functional documents)
o
Worked
with developers to make sure that they understood the use cases
o
Worked
with quality control teams to develop test plan and test cases.
o
Worked
with users to conduct user acceptance testing.
o
Developed
user training manuals
What is an use case diagram.
Ans : A use case
diagram consists of actors, and use
cases together with their relationship . It depicts a unit of functionality of
the system.
What
is a system boundary?
Ans: A system boundary
consists of the various use case scenarios along with their relationship. It
indicates the scope of the system. Actors are external to the system boundary.
What
was your main responsibility in your project
Ans: The last project I worked for was in
Commerce bank (in Kansas city, MO)
The project was to automate the loan life
cycle process in which the client wanted to have an automated and integrated
system that would address all aspects from application by a customer to loan
closure. The system was to be based on a
web based application. (What is corresponding architecture for a web based
application).
The various steps in loan lifecycle were
understood and application included risk management and monitoring
capabilities.
My responsibility was
o
I
worked with the PM to decide upon the best approach for requirement gathering
o
I was the primary liaison between the business
users and the development team.
o
I
collected, documented and managed business requirements
o
Developed
use case and supplementary specification documents
o
Developed
supplementary specification (non-functional documents)
o
Worked
with developers to make sure that they understood the use cases
o
Worked
with quality control teams to develop test plan and test cases.
o
Worked
with users to conduct user adaptability testing.
o
Developed
user training manuals.
1.
How many workflows RUP has? Name them.
RUP has 9 workflows:
a.
Business
Modeling Workflow
b.
Requirements
Workflow
c.
Analysis
and Design Workflow
d.
Implementation
Workflow
e.
Test
Workflow
f.
Deployment
Workflow
g.
Project
Management Workflow
h.
Configuration
and Change Management Workflow
i.
Environmental
Workflow
2.
Describe in brief the different stages of RUP.
In Inception phase a broad picture of the
project is drawn. A vision document is written which gives a general vision of
the core projects requirements, key features and main constraints. An initial
use case model is developed. An initial
business case is written and an initial risk assessment is also done.
During the Elaboration phase all the
requirements are gathered from the stakeholders through various methods
(interviews, workshops etc.) and use case model is almost 80% completed. The
non-functional requirements are gathered and documented. A software
architecture description is also developed and a preliminary user manual is
written.
In Construction phase the actual coding is
done. Testing of the software is done to identify all the flaws so that there
is npo problem once the software is okayed for release. A basic flow is
obtained to get a feedback from the users to incorporate suggested changes from
them into the final software. A user manual is written. Use case model is
finished.
The final phase is the Transition phase. The
beta testing is done in this phase. The legacy database is converted. The final
manual is documented and user training is initiated.
3.
What are artifacts?
An artifact is a piece of information that is
used, modified or produced by a process.
4.
What are actors?
Any external entity that interacts with the
system is called an actor. It can be a human being, a database or any other system.
5.
How and why is RUP better than the processes used
earlier?
Three major advantages of RUP are:
a.
Its
iterative nature,
b.
It
is Risk driven and
c.
It
is use case driven
6.
At what stage do you start writing use cases?
In the Initiation phase.
7.
What are the different relationships in use cases?
Describe them.
Include relationship: When one use case is
utilized by two or more use cases.
Extend Relationship: When one use case can
extract data from another use case.
8.
How do you analyze requirements?
With the help of use cases, activity
diagrams etc.
9.
What is a scenario?
Scenario is a sequence of actions.
=========Another Set of Questions, most
answers are not good enough=======
1.
Tell me about your work experience.
I have been working as
a BA for past 6 years. The last project I worked on was with Ocean Bank. The
project was to build Enterprise Reporting System application to support credit
card business. My responsibility was to assist business in identifying,
understanding and documenting business needs. I collected and documented
business processes and business rules. I participated in requirements gathering
and documentation, both functional and non functional. I helped to develop both
high level and detailed application architecture to meet business needs. I also
assisted the Project Manager to evaluate the impact of changes and plan
accordingly. I helped in developing test scenarios and conducted several
project related presentations. I was also a part of user training.
2.
How did you gather requirements?
By conducting stakeholder interviews and
conducting workshops.
3.
How did you evaluate impact of change?
We evaluated impact of change by looking at
various alternate flows that would happen if the change is made and how it is
going to impact the scope of the project.
4.
What methodology did you use?
RUP
5.
What do you think is the major advantage of RUP.
Its iterative nature,
which helps to find the bugs in the system at earlier stages and when the
software is deployed it is pretty much bug free.
6.
Where do you create use cases and define them.
In Rational Rose
software.
7.
Have you used any other software for this purpose.
I have used Microsoft
products like Excel and Word to create and define use cases.
8.
What is the most important feature of Requisite Pro.
Its traceability
matrix
9.
What are the three things you see when you open Requisite
Pro.
14.
What internal or external clients.
Both
15.
What departments does this system impact.
Risk Management,
Mortgage servicing.
16.
What is an include use case and what is an extend
relationship.
When one use case is
utilized by two or more use cases it is an include relationship and when one
use case can extract data from another usecase it is an extend relationship.
17.
Give example
=============Another Set of Questions and
Answers========================
1. Tell me something about your last project.
I’ve been working as a
Business analyst for the past five years. During my last project, I worked with
Morgan Keegan Inc., who is a regional underwriter in the Chicago area. The
project was to build a website so as to support the bond trading amongst the
client and banks, trading officers, legal department etc. The website was build
through JSP with Sybase as the DB server. The main purpose of the website was
to streamline exchange and approval of the documents during the trade
initiation process. My role and responsibilities during the project were:
1.1.
To
act as a liaison between the project group and the operations group.
1.2.
To
help design scope document and to coordinate with top management for the
approval process.
1.3.
To
interview various personnel to understand the current process and the future
requirements.
1.4.
Documented
the business requirements of the desired system in the Business Requirement
Document. Used rational requisite pro for that.
1.5.
Used
rational Rose to draw use cases for different scenarios and cases.
1.6.
Developed
Business specification diagram so as to understand the whole work flow.
1.7.
Developed
activity and sequence diagrams in Rational Rose software, so as to have a
diagrammatic view of the workflow.
1.8.
Got
involved in the User acceptance Testing and documented the test scenarios and
outcomes.
2. Was there any trading taking place on this project?
Morgan Keegan is a
regional underwriter for mainly municipality bonds. The website designed was
primarily focused on streamlining the document exchange and approval process
between the client i.e. Morgan Keegan and banks, trading officers, dealers,
legal counsels and swap counterparts. The trading was taking place between the
client and each one of them. The website was a secured site with limited access
to these users. It wasn’t open for the general public and was meant for only
the concerned parties mentioned before. In all, there were 134 personnel
identified to be given an access to the site.
3. Tell me something about the Credit Card project which you
did.
This project was
undertaken for a regional bank in Texas i.e. Bank United. Bank united issues
several different credit cards with varying APR’s, fee structure, rewards plan
etc. They wanted to increase the revenue of the credit card portfolio and also
wanted to streamline the structure of attributes of the credit cards. My main
responsibilities were:
3.1.
Interacted
constantly between various departments regarding the project inputs and
documentation. As for example there was constant interaction between legal and
marketing departments with the PMO regarding various compliances which need to
be in place before anything can be finalized or sent out. (Opt Out option)
3.2.
Developed
the Work Breakdown structure which is a high level decomposition of the
project. The project was carried on 3 different teams and the schedule was
designed so that there is not much clash in between the teams and wherever
possible the activities can be done in parallel.
3.3.
Maintained
the change control document and tracked changes throughout the project. Also,
helped in getting the approvals and presenting the overall impact of the change
on the project.
3.4.
Developed
and Analyzed business requirement document for any contingencies and risk
issues arising either from the original document or from the changes.
3.5.
Helped
in creating alternate work flows and contingency plans.
3.6.
Worked
closely with the tech leads and project managers to publish daily and weekly
status reports.
4. Can you explain me the credit card cycle?
5. What transaction platform were you using in the credit
card project?
5.1.
Basically
there are two major players: FDR and TCS. In this project we were coordinating
with FDR for the data.
6. What documents did you furbished during the project.
6.1.
Scope
Document: This document covers what is the business need of the project and
what will be covered under the project. This also covers what is out of scope
i.e. what is not under the periphery of the project. Under this document, there
can be several sub sections like departmental scope, technical scope, location
scope..
6.2.
Business
Plan: This documents gives the outline of the project, why is it needed, who
all will be involved in the project, who will be responsible for what, how much
time it will take to complete the project, the budgetary requirements, the
internal marketing issues, the benefits of the project etc.
6.3.
Business
Requirement Document, which highlighted all the requirements, their risks
issues, the mitigation plans, the changes in the original plan etc.
6.4.
Business
Specification Document: This document highlights the whole work flow of the
project. This document helps in identifying a virtual picture of the final
system and what the user is looking for.
6.5.
Apart
from these documents, I was looking after different reports and updates
regarding the project and was furbishing different documents on as needed
basis.
7. What is the difference between business specification
document and business requirement document?
Explained above.
8. How many types of requirements did you list in the
requirements documents?
8.1.
Features
Requirement Document
8.2.
Legal
Requirement Document
8.3.
Population
Requirement Document
8.4.
Execution
Requirement
8.5.
Exception
Requirements
8.6.
Population
Overlap Requirements
9. Were there any compliance issues which you have to take
care of during the project?
There were always
certain compliance issues which needed to be given special attention. As for
example in my first bond trading project there were certain legal issues from
SEC which needed to be taken care of like what path does the document has to
take, who will sign what document and before whom, who shall be given the
authorization to access the web site, the security of the website etc. Again,
in the credit card project there were certain legal issues like the opt out
provision which needed to be taken care of, there were certain exceptions in
the population, who cant be mailed these changes etc.
10. Did you use any software for collecting business
requirements?
I used Rational Rose
for designing the Use Cases and Rational requisite pro for the business
requirement process.
11. What are the main features of the Requisite pro?
11.1.
Traceability
11.2.
Linking
the documents
11.3.
Linking
Use Cases with requirements documents
11.4.
Change
control
12. What is a Yield to Maturity and Yield to Call?
Yield to Maturity:
This is the value of the bond if it will be kept till the end of its life. Also
known as basis, it is actually the NPV of sum of all the cash flows (discounted
by the interest rate) which shall be received by the owner during the life of
the bond.
Yield to Call: This is
the yield or value of the bond if it is called upon at a certain time or is
planned to be called upon at a certain time.
13. What are artifacts?
Artifacts are the
documents which are produced after each phase in the RUP methodology. After
every phase there are certain documents which need to be furbished which mark
the end of the iteration or the phase. As for example you prepare a risk
assessment document and scope document during inception phase etc.
14. How do you prioritize your requirements?
It depends on what are
the user requirements, what phase of the project you are in, are there any
legal issues which needed to be settled etc.
15. What is the difference between equity and debt?
Debt is a loan and
equity is the right of ownership.
INTERVIEW
QUESTIONS
Q1. How do you document requirements?
A- After we finish all the user meetings,
interviews, JAD sessions, we will generally take notes. After finishing
requirement gathering sessions, we organize the requirements and put them into
requirement document templates. Then these templates can be sent to the users
for the user review. Once the user approves it, we can send this document to
the project folder.
Q2.
How do you come up with functional specification document?
A- Let me first tell you in brief what a
functional specification document exactly is. A Functional Specification
document is a blueprint for like how we want a particular project or
application to look and work. It also details what the finished product will do
and how a user will interact with it. The Functional
Specification is in essence a contract between the business customer and the IT
project team, describing from a technical view what the customer expects.
We will translate the business requirements
into system functionality in technical terms. I, personally, worked with tech
lead to come up with the high level architecture. This system architecture can
be broken down in functional modules based on the requirements. These
functional modules are component of the system, which can be clearly
distinguished from the other system. In between, initial recommendation of the
technology will also help in designing the functional specification document. I
documented the functional module behavior in use case diagrams and use case
scenarios.
Q4. How do you collect requirements?
A- I
started with reading the scope and the vision document. As a business analyst,
I would meet a broad range of users and will understand their requirements. The
business analyst will facilitate discussions and help the business people
anticipate future needs and opportunities. If needed, we can organize and run
joint application development (JAD) sessions with different groups of users.
·
Facilitating
discussion sessions between the stakeholders of the project
·
Conduct
one to one user requirement sessions between the key users and the business
manager
·
Conduct
JAD (Joint Application Development) workshops
Q6. How do you manage user expectations?
A- Managing user expectations is one of the
major challenges that I came across during my project. We have to make sure
that users do not immediately expect 100% accuracy and completeness from the
application when we go live. The best thing to do would be to start with
functional areas that we know are valid and complete. The user expectations can
be met by conducting review meetings at the end of requirement phase,
documenting the reviewed requirements in the review document, getting the
approval from user managers, keep the user and the managers updated with the
latest status of reviewed requirements, in case any feature was missed out or a
new feature is to be added in the system or in other words, the scope of the
project changes, then we can work out with the project manager and fill the
change request form.
Q7). What was your responsibility?
A- I worked as a business analyst for 4 years
in Mortgage Company. I was given the opportunity to build the enterprise
reporting system to support business areas including mortgage management,
mortgage portfolio management.
My major responsibility lied in the reading
of the Scope document, Vision document. I also arranged user manager meetings
and gathered requirements. I worked with tech lead to convert the business
requirements into the functional requirements and also we came up with the
architectural design, logical design and physical design of the system and
documented them. I also carried out the gap analysis between the new and
existing systems. During the project, I transformed data using data stage tool
and loaded in to oracle database. And finally generated reports. I also helped
the QA manager to come up with a test plan and procedure. I coordinated in
providing support and maintenance for the system. And working with the risk
managers.
Q8). How do you conduct user meetings?
A-
Working with business manager can help us to identify the subject matter
expert from each business area. We can plan the user meetings ahead of time and
send meeting invitations to the users with the agenda of the meeting, location,
time and the topic that will be discussed in the meeting. During the meeting,
we can take down document minutes which will help us to identify who said what
during the meeting. During the meeting, we can also document the issues
resolved and the issues that are not resolved. For any resolved issue, we can
identify the owner of that issue who will help in solving them. All the
business managers have to be presented with the question list if they lie in
the scope of the project. Then they are asked the time according to their
convenience and finally the meeting can be arranged.
Q9). How many business areas did you
interact?
A-
For the credit card project, I interacted with 4 main business areas
1) Marketing- which included sending mails,
emails to the customers and collection of their data
2) Payment- which
included information about the customer’s balances due, any late payments that
the customer is making
3) Getting credit
bureau report- buying the whole illegible population credit report and the
credit score, we can get the demographic data and the life style date of the customers.
Some of the credit bureaus from which we collected the data are Trans union,
Equi fax and Experian.
1)
Transaction
summary FDR (first data)- this gives the FICO score, we can get the transaction
report for the exiting customer of the FDR.
For the Mortgage
project-
New Loan Setup, Payment
Application/Remittance, Escrow and Reserve Administration, Collateral
Inspection and Monitoring, Default Administration, Sales
People, Servicing Transfer and Purchase Acquisitions, Business finance area
Q10).
Have you ever worked with the management?
A-
Yes, I have worked with the top-level management at many different
occasions. 1) During the requirement-gathering phase, I had the opportunity to
do 1 on 1 interview with the business managers. 2) Kept good communication with
the management during the project phase. 3) Whenever there were any issues, I
worked with the project manager to resolve the issues. 4) I also had a chance
to interact with the managers during the requirement and project review
meetings. 5) I made project presentations to senior management during project
review meetings.
Q11). How do you know you have collected the
right requirements?
A- we can document all the requirements that
we have collected. We can then send them to the users for the user review at
the end of each meeting. We can review questions with the user managers and get
their approval on the review document.
Q12). How do you decide which iteration
contains what features?
A- Since everyone wants their features to be
released in the 1st iteration or the 1st release, it
could be decided on the A) Business
priority: like what feature should go first based on the scope document. We can
also get together with business managers and discuss with them what they
require in the first release and get their approval. B) Business complexity: We
can study the business complexity and decide what feature should come in what
release changes.
Q13). What is a JAD?
Joint
Application Development (JAD) is a management process which helps IS work
effectively with users to develop information technology solutions that really
work. Its purpose is to define the project, design a solution, and monitor the
project until it reaches completion. JAD Scope - The JAD should cover the
complete development life cycle of a system. The JAD is usually a 3 to 6 month
well-defined project. For large-scale projects, it is recommended that the
project be approached incrementally, and that separate JAD's be used for each
increment.
Q14) Who do you invite in a JAD session?
A- Sponsor- he is the one
who provides resources and support for the project
Business users- There are
the users of the system being designed
System Analysts- they
provide non-technical explanations to help JAD members understand and fully
utilize the technology available
Q14) Have you ever worked with a 3rd
party data?
Yes, getting the date from
the credit bureau (transunion, experion, Equifax) and Transaction summary FDR
(first data)
Q15). How do you conduct one to one user
interviews?
A- We can conduct user
interviews with the key users and the business managers. We can send them the
list of questions through email as what exactly needs to be done, we can ask
them what time would be most suitable for them to meet us and then we can go
and see them.
Test Plan describes the strategy and approach
used to plan, organize, and manage the project’s testing activities. It
identifies testing objectives, methodologies and tools, expected results,
responsibilities, and resource requirements. It is the primary plan for the
testing team. A Test Plan ensures that the testing process will be conducted in
a thorough and organized manner and enable the team to determine the stability
of the solution. A continuous understanding of the solution’s status builds
confidence in team members and stakeholders as the solution is developed and
stabilized.
What is a use case?
A use case describes what a system does from
the standpoint of an external observer. It emphasize on what a system does
rather than how it does. It several components like actors, use case and
association. So a use case is basically a collection of actors, use cases, and
their communications. An actor is who or what initiates the events involved in
that task. Communications are lines that link actors to use cases.
Flow
of events in the use case
The
flow of events of a use case contains the most important information derived
from use case modeling work. It should describe the use case's behavior clearly
enough for an outsider to easily understand. It will describe how the use case
starts and ends, what data is exchanged between the actor and the use case but
it does not describe the user interface.
A
Basic Use-Case Glossary
Alternative
Flow A
use-case flow that describes some alternative or exceptional behavior something
that causes the system to deviate from the basic flow of events.
Basic
Flow The
use-case flow that describes the most likely course of events the system will
take when the use case is performed.
Extension
Use Case An
extended use case indicates that one use case is simply a variation of another.
It is a use case that adds behavior to at least one other use case (referred to
as the "base" or "extended" use case). Extension is used to
simplify the addition of behavior to an already complete use case description.
Flow
A
section of a use case description that describes some full or partial path
through the use case. A use case always has at least a basic flow and may have
one or more alternative flows.
Included
Use Case A
"fragment" of a use case that is referred to by two or more other use
cases (referred to as the "base" or "including" use cases).
Included use cases are used to eliminate redundant description in two or more
use cases.
Scenario
A
scenario is a basic flow of events plus zero or more alternative flows.
Use-Case
Storyboard A
visual use-case description that depicts the flow of events with a sequenced
series of screen shots, often supplemented or annotated with the actual
use-case description. Used to visualize the behavior of the system or to gather
feedback on a highly visual use-case description
Generalization A use case
generalization shows that one use case is simply a special kind of another.
View- A view present
requirements that are stored in the project database. We can also manage and
display requirements, their attributes, and their relationships with other
requirements in views.
Attribute Matrix- It
displays all the requirements of a specified type. The requirements are listed
in rows and their attributes appear in columns.
What is Rational
Requisite Pro?
It is a very powerful
requirements management tool that helps teams to manage their project
requirements. It also promotes communication and collaboration among the
members of the team. RequisitePro has a very robust nature will helps us to
organize and prioritize our requirements and to trace relationships between
them. It has 3 types of project templates- 1) use case, 2) Traditional, and 3)
Composite
Traceability- It allows us to
manage the effect of requirement change. We can link requirements of the same
type or of different type to indicate that they are related to or dependent on
each other.
Traceability Matrix- It displays the
relationships between 2 types of requirements or requirements of the same type.
Traceability Tree- It displays the
chain of traceability to or from requirements of a specified type.
Trace
to/ Trace from state represents a bi-directional dependency relationship
between two requirements.
A
relationship between requirements becomes suspect if RequisitePro
detects that a requirement has been modified. Then all its immediate children
and all the direct relationships traced to and from also become suspect.
Architecture Design- It describes the overall system design
including the operating environment, the development environment, and the
components of the system. It is divided into 3 parts:-
Conceptual Design – It defines object usage scenarios, the input and output parameters,
the application high level feature requirements and high level relationship
among all the players in the system. The usage scenarios / use cases
describe all the participants and activities within a business environment that
require a solution. The Conceptual Design addresses that need by describing one
or more alternative solutions. This design statement is expressed in the
context of the solution users, and describes what the solution will do to
support their activities.
Logical Design – It identifies a set
of objects and services as well as a user interface and a logical database
design. A logical design identifies and defines all
the objects and their behaviors, attributes, and relationships within the scope
of the solution. The goal of the
logical design is to convert the contents of the usage scenarios and conceptual
design into an abstract model that identifies the cooperating logical
components that support the solution.
Physical
Design
– The Physical Design is
the application of real-world physical design constraints applied to the
Logical Design. This is developed by analyzing which pieces of the Logical
Design already exist in components, what can be reused or modified, and what
new pieces must be created. It identifies the final development
technology and packages the objects and services, user interfaces and physical
database design into components targeted for the identified technology
platform.
What is SODA? (Software
Documentation Automation)
Rational SODA is used for the automation of
the software projects through out the life cycle of a project. It increases the
productivity by eliminating errors in the extraction of the information. It
retrieves information from various sources and use it to generate a document or
report according to a template.
What is ClearQuest?
It’s
a customizable defect and change request management system which is designed
for the dynamic environment of software development. With clearquest, we can
manage every type of change activity associated with software development.
What is clearcase?
It
is a version control software. During the construction phase, when developer
finishes coding, they will send it to the clearcase for source code control.
What
is Rose?
It
is a visual modeling tool that facilitates use of the Unified Modeling
Language. It helps improve communication both within teams and across team
boundaries, thereby reducing development time and improving software quality.
How
does Rational Unified Process relate to the Unified Modeling Language (UML)?
The UML is a visual
modeling language for software systems. Rational Unified Process is a software
engineering process that provides a disciplined approach to assigning and
managing tasks and responsibilities within a development organization. RUP uses
the UML visual notation and provides you with guidelines on how to use the UML
effectively. RUP has been developed hand-in-hand with the UML.
RUP- It is a software engineering process whose
goal is to ensure the production of very high quality software that meets the
needs of its end-users.
4
Phases of RUP
There
are four phases to a RUP project: Inception, Elaboration, Construction, and
Transition. These phases represent a certain emphasis to the activities within
iteration. RUP is represented by few characteristics like it is iterative, risk
driven.
Inception.
In
this phase, basically, the project is visualized and a broad picture of the
project is drawn. A list of the various activities of the project is also noted
along with their objectives. It also includes how much budget should be
allocated and what time span will the project takes. The goal of the iterations
is to help the project team decide what the true objectives of the project will
be. The iterations will explore different possible solutions, and different
possible architectures. We also have to define the high level timeline. The
final document that we come up with, in this phase, will consist of a project
plan and a finalized budget.
Life
Cycle Objective Milestone. The Inception phase ends at the Life Cycle Objective
Milestone.
Elaboration. The purpose of this phase is to analyze the
problem domain and develop the project plan. It also eliminates the highest
risk elements of the project. During this phase, stakeholders will see real
progress against the project plan, and they will see the project plan becoming
more and more stable and reliable. The goal is simply to address these risks up
front so that they don’t catch the team later. The requirements are gathered in
this phase from the stakeholders, users and everybody involved with the project.
The architectural design of the system is also decided in this phase and gap
analysis between the new and existing business processes is also done. The
final document that we come up with, in this phase, will consist of a
functional requirement specification, design specification, and risk management
plan.
Life
Cycle Architecture Milestone. This milestone marks the end of the
Elaboration phase, and the beginning of the Construction phase.
Construction.
During
this phase, all remaining components and application features are developed and
integrated into the product and all features are thoroughly tested. Here the
software is coded. Most of the use case is written along with all its actors as
well as their relationship between them are mentioned. A lot of iterative
operations are performed. A user manual is also documented. So this phase gives
us the detailed design of the system. The final document that we come up with,
in this phase, consists of a technical and database design, risk management
plan and system test scripts.
Initial
Operational Capability Milestone. Often called a beta release, this milestone
marks the end of the Construction phase and the beginning of the Transition
phase.
Transition.
The
purpose of this phase is to release the software product to the user community.
Here also the beta testing is done for the final time. The final manual is
documented and training to the users is initiated. The next upgrade decision is
also made in this phase and when it is needed to be implemented is also
decided.
Product
Release Milestone. This
milestone marks the end of the Transition phase, and possibly the beginning of
the next Inception phase. It is crossed when the project team and the
stakeholders agree that the objectives set during the Inception phase (and
modified throughout the other phases) have been met and the user is satisfied.
RUP being a process
describes who is doing what, when and how in the form of workers, artifacts,
workflows and activities respectively. A worker defines the behavior and
responsibilities of an individual or a group of individuals working together as
a team. An artifact is a piece of information that is produced, modified or
used by a process. A workflow is a sequence of activities that produces a
result of observable value. An activity of a specific worker is the unit of
work that an individual in that role need to perform.
===================Another
Set of Questions and Answers===============
Q1) what was your responsibility?
A1) i worked as a business analyst for 4
years in bank one. I was given the opportunity to build the enterprise
reporting system to support.
A)
Asset
management.
B)
Portfolio.
C)
Risk
management.
There are 3 main component of the system.
A)
Extraction,
transferring and loading. (etl).
B)
Database.
C)
Reporting
The main business area from which i collected
the data was
A)
Marketing.
B)
Payment.
C)
Getting
credit beuro report.
D)
Transaction
summary FDR (first data).
My major responsibity lies in the reading of
the
A)
Scope
document.
B)
Vision
document.
C)
Any
other document.
D)
Arranging
user manager meeting and gathering requirement.
E)
Converting
the business requirement into the functional requirement.
F)
Carrying
out the gap analysis.
G)
And
document the entire gathered requirement.
Coordinating with the tech-lead to design
A)
Architectural
design.
B)
Logical
design.
C)
Physical
design.
D)
Documenting
all designs in the design document.
Coordinating with the developers to develop
the system
Providing help to quality assurance manager
in designing
A)
Test
plan.
B)
Test
procedure.
Coordinating in providing support and
maintenance for the system. And working with the risk managers.
Q2) how do you collect the requirement?
A2) in gathering requirement i start with the
reading of the
A)
Scope
document.
B)
Vision
document.
C)
And
any other related document.
D)
Discuss
with the project manager, his preferred approach to come with the approach for
business requirement. Describing the current business areas.
There are 3 main approaches:
A)
Regular
user meetings.
B)
Interview
individual business managers or key user managers on 1 on 1 basis.
C)
Conduct
JAD session.
A)
Regular
user meetings.
1)
Find
out the users from the related business manager based on the scope document.
2)
Arrange meeting by making the.
A)
Agenda
for the meeting.
B)
Venue
of the meeting
C)
And
the time at what meeting is held.
3)
Taking
down the notes at the time of meeting.
4)
Bring
out the outstanding issues that are not resolved.
5)
Open
issue documentation, finding out the person that can help in solving them,
getting the time from him.
B)
1
on 1 meeting.
1)
All
business manages have to be presented with the question list if they lie in the
scope of the project.
2)
They
are asked the time according to their convenience and the meeting is arranged.
C)
JAD
sessions.
1)
JAD
session is the focus on the specific area generally takes up the outstanding
issues.
2)
JAD
session might have the it people involved.
Q3) how do you come with the functional
document?
A3)
Q4) how many business area did you
interacted?
A4) i interacted with 4 main business areas
A)
Marketing.
Sending mails, emails,
collection of there date etc.
B)
Payment.
Customer payment, late
payments, dues, etc.
C)
Getting
credit beuro report.
Buying the whole
illegible population credit report and the credit score. Gives the demographic
data, life style etc.
Some of the credit
beuro’s
1)
Trans
union.
2)
Equi
fax
3)
Experian.
D)
Transaction
summary FDR (first data). Gives fico score.
Get the transaction
report for the exiting customer of the fdr.
Q5) have you ever
worked with the management?
A5) yes i have worked
with the top-level management at many different occasions.
1) During the
requirement gathering phase had the opportunity to do 1 on 1 interview with the
top-level management.
2)
Keep
good communication with the managers during the project phase.
3)
Whenever
any issues come up worked with the project manager to resolve the issue with
the business manages.
4)
Also
interacted with the managers during the requirement and project review
meetings.
5)
Gave
functional requirement presentation on numerous occasions.
Q6) what is the most challenging thing that
you faced?
A6) the kind of challenge I faced is a
business challenge that is
1)
Meeting
the user expectations.
A)
On
delivery of the project the user might be expecting more.
B)
In
multi release all user want there features to go in the 1st release.
The user
expectations can be met by
1)
Review
meeting at the end of requirement phase.
2)
Documenting
the reviewed requirements in the review document. Which user manager’s review.
3)
Getting
the approval from user managers.
4)
Keep
the user and the managers updated with the latest status of reviewed requirements.
5)
In
case any feature was missed out or a new feature is to be added in the system
or the scope changes then work out with the project manager and change request
form is to be filled. (CRF).
6)
Keep
updating about the design document with review, with the technical person.
Q9) what is flow of events in the use case?
A9) the flow of events of a use case contains
the most important information derived from use case modeling work. It should
describe the use case's behavior clearly enough for an outsider to easily
understand.
The following represent some guidelines for
the contents of the flow of events:
·
Describe
how the use case starts and ends.
·
Describe
what data is exchanged between the actor and the use case.
·
Do
not describe the user interface.
·
Detail
the flow of events. Remember that test designers are to use these to identify
test cases.
Structure
The two main parts of the flow of events are basic flow of events
and alternative flows
of events. The basic flow of events should cover what "normally"
happens when the use case is performed. The alternative flows of events cover
behavior of optional or exceptional character in relation to the normal
behavior, and also variations of the normal behavior. You can think of the
alternative flows of events as "detours" from the basic flow of
events, some of which will return to the basic flow of events and some of which
will end the execution of the use case.
Documenting
A flow of events document should be created
for each use case. The format of the document can vary depending primarily on
how formal they are. The rational unified process provides templates for
documenting flow of events. Alternatively, soda can be used.
Q10) how
to convert business requirement in the functional requirement?
A10) work with the tech lead comes up with
the high level architecture. These are the components of the system, which has
an input, an output, and there inter relationship.
System architecture is one, which can be
broken down in functional modules based on requirements.
Functional modules are component of the
system, which can be clearly be distinguished from the other system but has the
interaction with the similar system. Can develop use case for the different
modules.
Q11) how do you know that you have collected
the right data?
A11)
1)
Review
questions with the user managers and get their approval on the review document.
2)
Compare
the review document with the request document they should match.
Q12) how do u decide which iteration contains
what features?
A12) cause everyone want there features to be
release in the 1st iteration or the 1st release is could
be decided on the
A) Business priority:
1)
What
feature goes 1st based on the scope document.
2)
Review
with the business managers what they require in the 1st release and
get their approval.
C)
Business
complexity:
Depending on the
business complexity what feature will come in what release changes.
Use-Case
Storyboard
A
visual use-case description that depicts the flow of events with a sequenced
series of screen shots, often supplemented or annotated with the actual
use-case description. Used to visualize the behavior of the
system
or to gather feedback on a highly visual use-case description.
The UML is a visual modeling language for
software systems. Rational Unified Process is a software engineering process
that provides a disciplined approach to assigning and managing tasks and
responsibilities within a development organization. RUP uses the UML visual
notation and provides you with guidelines on how to use the UML effectively.
RUP has been developed hand-in-hand with the UML.
