Among his well thought out rules are Rule 7: Listen to everyone in your company and figure out ways to get them talking and Rule 10: Swim upstream. These two rules are part of what make his company remain making a profit well after he passed away and even in some of the most horrible economic climates.

At Pierson Requirements Group they too believe in listening to everyone in your company and can help you to ‘find a way to get them talking’. In their User Acceptance Testing Seminar they aim to train management to do just that.

The objectives of this seminar are to:

• Provide an understanding of the different testing techniques and methods and when to use them
• Learn how to identify and write test scenarios and test cases using UML and Use Cases
• Learn how to quality check requirements documents and use cases
• Define a repeatable process for User Acceptance Testing
• Understand the roles and responsibilities of the Business Analyst in UAT and where UAT fits in the SDLC
• Provide practical exercises for quality checking requirements documents, using testing techniques and methods, writing test scenarios, creating UAT plans and strategies and writing detailed defect reports
• Perform usability testing techniques and formal acceptance reviews for better customer satisfaction

Contact Pierson Requirements Group to schedule your next seminar today!

Business requirements gathering and writing works best when the business analyst doesn’t throw the requirements over the cubicle wall to IT!  Using collaborative requirements gathering sessions for scoping, high level requirements and detailed requirements should be conducted.  If you involve the technical team in the detailed requirements sessions, you will have less churn and less chaos.  Below is a description of the focus group sessions the Business Analyst can conduct:

• The first step would be to review the requirements use cases from the requirements sessions previously conducted.
• Once you have reviewed the high level requirements, you are ready to identify how the system will work with the SMEs, and Technical Leads.  Using the requirements use cases, develop the detailed steps of the flows on the use cases.  Using a ping-pong method, identify what the user will do and what the system response should be and document.  The Business Analyst can use an Activity Diagram with swimlanes technique to help identify the detailed steps in the use case.
• While you are identifying the detailed steps, you can also note where you have screens and reference them on the use case.  The Business Analyst should lead the Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and the Technical Team in a brainstorming session using the storyboarding technique to collaboratively build screen mock-ups.
• The Business Analyst should then further define the screen specifications by capturing the details of the data fields on the screens with the team. 

A good article that supports the importance of collaborative detailed requirements sessions as described above is as follows:  http://advice.cio.com/jim_vaughan/10442/project_managers_need_to_engage_it_at_the_right_time

For more information please contact wpierson@piersonrequirementsgroup.com or call 203-322-1606.  Check out the website for www.piersonrequirementsgroup.com.

Click on the course name to view the course content.   Business Requirements Gathering & Writing using JAD, Use Cases and UML.

For more information please contact wpierson@piersonrequirementsgroup.com or call 203-322-1606.  Check out the website for www.piersonrequirementsgroup.com.

However, one of the best ways to make sure you have a superior company with better customer service is to constantly test and re-test your employees and your methods.

Employing a business analyst within your company is a great way to keep day to day tabs on what is being done well and what needs improvement. These individuals are sharp, focused, and diligent. The great ones are trained by Pierson Requirements Group.

Pierson aims to make you and your people run at their absolute best through targeting weak areas, retraining and even overhauling of old processes and methods.

Review the many ways in which they can offer your business the tools needed to stay in the black for years to come by making sure no one out there does what you do better or more efficiently.

Contact Pierson Requirements Group for more information on seminars and training classes today.

Simply put the idea is that you can put some of your call centers and the like in countries where labor is cheaper than it is here in the states. The families able to procure employment from American businesses in poorer areas are able to make far and away more than what other families in the area are. By providing jobs you are truly changing the face of people who have been impoverished for as long as most can remember.

The Pierson Website explains:

Pierson Requirements Group, Inc. has divided the services into three phases of tasks. The phases are preparation, workshop and follow-up.

During the Preparation Phase, Pierson Requirements Group, Inc. will include the following activities:

• Interviews and orientations of key stakeholders (SMEs) from each business unit to review and uncover seed material and identify project issues for the session
• Teleconference and on-site interviews to review the current documentation practices and templates used for business requirements
• Review of sample documents for a similar project
• Planning the session logistics, deliverables and agenda with the project team
• JAD Facilitator and JAD Documenter prepare the JAD Documentation to be used in the session

Contact Pierson Requirement Group for a full and complete explaination and the steps toward making this type of situation a reality.

Pierson will aid your company in taking your long term goals and breaking them down into daily steps involving analyzing, training, and execution.

They use some very specific methods which they have honed to near perfection.

“Pierson can provide you with a customized methodology for Object-Oriented development projects using the notation of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) and the Unified Process. This customized methodology can be placed on your intranet to serve as a handbook or guide for the software system development teams. This document defines the steps and phases that should be followed, technical modeling options, and refers to quality procedures which should be employed

Pierson can also provide your company with a methodology to evaluate and select a vendor for outsourcing and for evaluation and selection of software packages.” - Pierson

Check out the pages of explanations and definitions to better understand what role Pierson can play in your business plan and how big that role is going to be.

They use Joint Application Development or JAD. This is a technique used for gathering business software requirements. The purpose of JAD is to bring together the technical/creative team and the business community in a structured workshop setting to extract consensus based software requirements. This is accomplished by using a trained JAD facilitator and customized, planned agendas to assist the participants in arriving at complete, high quality requirements.

Another method employeed frequently by Pierson Requirements Group is Rapid Application Development or RAD which is a process that speeds the delivery of functionality to end-users by segmenting software into pieces for delivery rather than delivering all of the software functionality in one large implementation. It is an iterative process utilizing a spiral methodology and is also customer driven following an evolutionary process using continuous application engineering in a time-boxed fashion with a dedicated professional team. The goal of the iterative approach is to reduce the time between requests and delivery of Business Application Software.

Pierson Requirements group can take some of the sting and frustration generally associated with the start of a company out of the equation. Contact their offices for more information.

” Because they often write user requests into technical specifications, the systems analysts are the liaisons between vendors and IT professionals. They may be responsible for developing cost analysis, design considerations, and implementation time-lines.” - Web Definition

The Pierson Requirements group aims to get your analyst to the top of his or her game by providing the best possible approach to all of these areas of expertise. They have training courses such as  a 2 day course entitled ‘Project Management Training’.

The Introduction to Project Management class offers training in the basic skills that a Project Manager would use to effectively manage an IT Project. The participants will learn how to scope and plan projects for IT initiatives. The seminar focus is on:

• How to be an effective project manager and what skills are required
• How to define the project vision and scope
• How to create and manage an effective project plan
• How to manage the project communication process
• Each seminar participant receives a Seminar Handbook with sample templates, checklists, procedures guide and a solution set.

Training courses that target specific areas within your company are one of the components to a great and growing empire. If your small business wishes to grow beyond it’s current reach, Pierson Requirements Group can help you do just that.

They have specialized trainers and training courses so that your employees can be better equip to handle whatever your professional niche throws at them.

They have courses such as the two day seminar entitled ‘Agile Training’. The course aims to focus on training the product owners and business users how to be an effective testers. This class will:

• Provide an understanding of the different testing techniques and methods and when to use them
• Learn how to identify and write test scenarios and test cases using UML and Use Cases
• Learn how to quality check requirements documents and use cases
• Define a repeatable process for User Acceptance Testing

and much more! Each participant receives a handbook for later referencing and Pierson remains in contact with your offices  should further questions become pertinent. See a full class breakdown here.

Contact Pierson today and watch how they can make your company faster, more efficient, and better at everything.