Requirement Definition for Distributed Teams a white paper by Blueprint Software Systems Description: Join Blueprint's product team as they discuss how global organizations can leverage empowered business analysts to ensure clear articulation of business requirements. Learn how requirements visualization enables teams with different native languages and different cultural backgrounds to replace document-based BRD's with "Interactive Movie Simulations" to visualize project requirements. Use the following link to access the on-demand Webinar: http://www.blueprintsys.com/webinar.php

1. Requirements Definition
for Distributed Teams
By Matthew Morgan, CMO Blueprint
www.blueprintsys.com
matt.morgan@blueprintsys.com

2. Requirements Definition for Distributed Teams | Blueprint Whitepaper
ABSTRACT
Today’s business application software is relied on to automate and empower critical business processes.
There is not an organization in the developed world that can process a sales order, hire an employee, or close
their book at the end of a fiscal year without the help of business software. Software is not an accessory to
the business, it is the business.
In today’s software development landscape, project teams are consistently being stretched to deliver against
increasing business challenges to enable an organization to sharpen their competitive advantage. In a
global market place, this continual pressure on IT is not just stretching team capacity; it is actually stretching
the organizational structure as well. In fact, in 2009, over 70% of business and IT teams are geographically
distributed and globalization is the business driver for the majority of new projects [1].
With geographical distribution becoming the standard operating procedure, collaboration between business
and IT teams around project requirements has become a new focal point to control project team efficiency
and effectiveness. Organizations must improve the fidelity and precision of their software requirements to
ensure that IT delivers the right solutions that the business needs. Communication of project requirements
must evolve to eliminate the cultural, geographic, and time-zone barriers that now exist between these
separated colleagues.
This paper will explore how software projects are improving In 2009, over 70% of business and IT
the collaboration between distributed IT and business teams
teams are geographically distributed and
by focusing on requirements communication. We will explore
how visual requirements simulation plays a critical role to ensure globalization is the business driver for the
understanding and to eliminate barriers to productivity that majority of new projects.
naturally exist within distributed, global teams.
INTRODUCTION
Requirements are the blueprint to the functionality, interoperability, and integration of business software.
As more organizations drive to streamline, consolidate, and modernize existing applications, the complexity
of requirements is increasing. Analysis of requirements has become a job within itself, with an emerging
dedicated stakeholder that services the development and communication of project requirements to
business and IT stakeholders. This stakeholder is commonly referred to as the business analyst or business
systems analyst.
As the world continues to get smaller and businesses expand to reach new markets and lower-cost suppliers,
globalization has become a major driver of IT projects. In 2009, the majority of IT projects are designed
to assist businesses scale to meet the needs of globalization. According to a recent CIO survey by Smart
Enterprise on Globalization and IT, over 50% of IT teams are being asked to build systems for non-US supply
chains, 40% are being asked to deliver software applications that leverage 3rd party technology service
providers, and 60% of new projects are serving customers that sit in a different country [1].
[1] Smart Enterprise CIO Survey on “Globalization and IT”, 2008.
Blueprint Software Systems Inc. 372 Bay Street, Suite 1600. Toronto, Ontario, M5H 2W9

3. Requirements Definition for Distributed Teams | Blueprint Whitepaper
On top of the increasing complexity of IT projects driven by globalization, team distribution has become
a critical operational challenge. According to a recent report from the IEEE, “key risk factors associated
with IT development projects are magnified or multiplied when dealing with distributed project teams” [2].
Distributed teams are largely in place due to business impacts from globalization. Typical drivers include
the increase in mergers and acquisitions, the need for new talent pools, the leveraging of lower-cost
resources, outsourcing, and overall business geographic demand. According to the IT Strategy Center, the
most significant impacts of distributed teams are directly related to communication of business context, the
implementation of language barriers, time zone separation, the lack of physical exchange, and the reliance
on batch oriented communication [3].
CIOs can adopt new requirements definition practices and
CIOs can adopt new requirements techniques to appropriately eliminate the risk associated with
distribution. These practices include shifting away from the
definition practices and techniques to
heavy use of natural language expression and moving toward
appropriately eliminate the risk associated the use of multi-aspect requirements definition with visual
with team distribution. simulation and validation. Multi-aspect requirements definition
enables organizations to standardize on rich requirements that
eliminate ambiguity and imprecision that often exists in the
geographic separation of teams.
LEVELS OF GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION
Blueprint’s customers range across four distinct levels of team distribution. Each level creates a unique set of
challenges for defining and communicating project requirements. Figure One illustrates these four levels of
distribution.
At level one, business and IT teams are
co-located within the same building and
location. Just ten years ago, this was more
common than any other level, but in 2009
this represents less than 30% of Fortune
500 IT teams. At level two, business and IT
teams are distributed at a department level.
IT is usually centralized and acts as a service
arm to the business. At level three, business
teams themselves, or IT teams themselves,
are geographically separated, which increase
the complexity and challenges of inter
department collaboration. Finally at level Figure One: Four levels of Team Distribution
four, globalization has created the ultimate
geographic challenge, with team separation
and distribution pervasive across the globe. With globalization and the rise of outsourcing, this has become
all too common.
[2] Risk Factors in Disstributed Projects, IEEE.
[3] Realtime Collaboration Solutions for the Global Workforce, ITStrategy Center
Blueprint Software Systems Inc. 372 Bay Street, Suite 1600. Toronto, Ontario, M5H 2W9

4. Requirements Definition for Distributed Teams | Blueprint Whitepaper
As organizations evolve to embrace more distribution, the challenges to understand the context of
application requirements increase significantly. These challenges include intra-teams functional capabilities,
task understanding, gaining organizational consensus, and the cultural challenges to understanding.
In Figure Two, we overlay how these challenges (and risks associated with them) increase significantly as
teams become more distributed.
As organizations evolve to embrace more
distribution, the challenges to understand
the context of application requirements
increase significantly.
Figure Two: Challenges to Alignment of Distributed Teams
CHALLENGES OF REQUIREMENTS COMMUNICATION WITH DISTRIBUTED TEAMS
As we discussed in the previous section, geographic distribution injects new challenges to IT productivity
and alignment. Requirements communication fits squarely into the center of the challenges of distributed
teams. Traditional methods of communicating requirements, which include enumerated lists of features,
functional and non-functional requirements, business process diagrams, data-rules, etc., generally are
documented in large word-processing or spreadsheet documents. When applied to distributed teams,
this method of communicating requirements creates significant waste and opportunities for failure, as the
barrier to understanding can become too great to overcome.
Incorrect interpretation and the lack of requirements validation
Requirements communication fits squarely can create artificial (or false) goals which consume valuable
team resources. Due to the nature of software development,
into the center of the challenges of
these false goals usually manifest themselves into incorrectly
distributed teams. implemented code, resulting in costly waste and rework.
Outsource providers often treat such rework as change,
resulting in costly charge-backs to the business.
MULTI-ASPECT REQUIREMENTS DEFINITION FOR DISTRIBUTED TEAMS
To significantly reduce the probability of ineffective requirements communication through natural language
documentation, IT organizations are transitioning to more precise vehicles to communicate requirements.
One of these vehicles is the adoption of the multi-aspect definition approach to communicate requirements
in a highly visual way. Multi-aspect definition provides detailed context capture through highly precise data
structures. These definition elements used in these holistic representations include use-cases for role (or
Blueprint Software Systems Inc. 372 Bay Street, Suite 1600. Toronto, Ontario, M5H 2W9

5. Requirements Definition for Distributed Teams | Blueprint Whitepaper
actor) based flows, user-interface screen mockups, data lists, and the linkage of decision-points to business
process definitions. These structures augment enumerated lists of functional and nonfunctional requirements.
The benefits of this approach include the use of simulation to ensure requirements understanding. Simulation
is a communication mechanism that walks requirements stakeholders through process, data, and UI flows
in linear order to represent how the system should function. Stakeholders have the ability to witness the
functionality in rich detail, consuming the information in a structured way that eliminates miscommunication
entirely.
Multi-aspect definition and simulation also provide context for validation. Validation is the process in
which stakeholders review each and every requirement in the appropriate sequence, make appropriate
comments, and then sign-off to ensure the requirements are accurate, clear, understood, and are feasible to
be implemented. Requirements validation can be considered one of the most cost-effective quality control
cycles to ensure team understanding.
Since requirements are the “blueprint” of the system, distributed stakeholders can make use of multi-
aspect definition and simulation during implementation to gain understanding of the goals of the project.
Simulation eliminates ambiguity by providing visual representation of goals which, in turn, eliminates
interpretation.
Rich requirements documentation often is a specified
deliverable for most IT projects for various reasons that Since requirements are the “blueprint” of
include regulatory compliance (Sarbanes Oxley, HIPAA,
the system, distributed stakeholders can
etc.), internal procedural specifications, and other internal
review cycles. Multi-aspect definition can serve as the basis make use of multi-aspect definition and
of this documentation and next generation requirements simulation during implementation to gain
workbench solutions (such as Blueprint Requirements
understanding of the goals of the project.
Center) can transform models into rich, custom Microsoft
Word documentation. Since these documents are auto-
generated, the amount of effort required to build and
maintain these documents is minimized.
THE SOLUTION: A CASE STUDY
PAREXEL is a world-leader in biopharmaceutical research. Some of the world’s largest drug, biotech, and
medical device firms make use of their clinical research, consulting and medical communications services.
PAREXEL was in the early stages of a major $1.2M upgrade to their revenue forecasting system. This project
involved project staff distributed across many countries. They were already using HP Quality Center for
requirements management test planning & management. At this early stage in the project they were already
noticing issues with the requirements they had defined. General observations were that the requirements
were too ‘wordy’ and abstract. Clarity had been lost in the translation of original business need into system
functional requirements, and there were numerous instances of misunderstanding and misinterpretation of
the requirements which, to that point, had been expressed using flat-file documents. During this early phase
they took the opportunity to evaluate tools that might help with these requirements issues. Blueprint was
Blueprint Software Systems Inc. 372 Bay Street, Suite 1600. Toronto, Ontario, M5H 2W9

6. Requirements Definition for Distributed Teams | Blueprint Whitepaper
one of the products considered and was ultimately chosen partly due to its capabilities to support distributed
requirements definition teams.
The development results of the very first module defined using Blueprint Requirements Center was enough
to extend its use to all enhancements of PAREXEL’s financial applications. The first module defined using
Blueprint Requirements Center saved three months of rework effort.
The full extent of Requirements Center’s feature set is now leveraged to span the complete requirements
lifecycle including requirements lists, use case models, user interface mockups, simulations, and the
generation of assets automatically, such as tests and documents.
PAREXEL has established a corporate Blueprint forum and knowledge base and is currently in the process of
expanding use of Blueprint Requirements Center to other departments throughout the organization.
ABOUT BLUEPRINT
Named a “Cool Vendor” in Application Development by leading analyst firm Gartner, and the winner of
the Jolt Excellence Award in Design and Modeling, Blueprint aligns business and IT teams by delivering
the industry’s leading requirements suite designed specifically for the business analyst. Blueprint solutions
empower analyst teams to eliminate requirements misunderstanding by capturing, validating, and delivering
precise business requirements to local or distributed IT application project teams. Blueprint’s product
line functions as a collaborative system for the requirements lifecycle, including requirements elicitation,
elaboration, validation, and acceptance. Blueprint is a global provider, with presence in the United States,
Canada, and Europe. For more information on Blueprint, visit http://www.blueprintsys.com.
Blueprint Software Systems Inc. 372 Bay Street, Suite 1600. Toronto, Ontario, M5H 2W9