Software Requirements Essentials: Core Practices for Successful Business Analysis

What the book is

Software Requirements Essentials was published by Addison-Wesley in March 2023. Its authors are Karl Wiegers, co-author of the widely used book Software Requirements, and Candase Hokanson. The book distils requirements work into 20 core practices for planning, elicitation, analysis, specification, validation and management.

What it covers

The 20 practices are grouped into six chapters after an introduction:

• Laying the foundation: understand the problem before converging on a solution, define business objectives, define the solution's boundaries, identify and characterise stakeholders, and identify empowered decision makers.
• Requirements elicitation: understand what users need to do with the solution, identify events and responses, assess data concepts and relationships, and elicit and evaluate quality attributes.
• Requirements analysis: analyse requirements and requirement sets, create requirements models, create and evaluate prototypes, and prioritise the requirements.
• Requirements specification: write requirements in consistent ways, organise them in a structured fashion, identify and document business rules, and create a glossary.
• Requirements validation: review and test the requirements.
• Requirements management: establish and manage requirements baselines, and manage changes to requirements effectively.

The authors write for business analysts, requirements engineers, product managers, product owners and developers, and each practice applies to traditional and agile projects alike.

Is it worth reading?

For someone starting out in business analysis, it is one of the most efficient books available. It is concise and tightly focused, with pragmatic how-to detail instead of theory, so you can read one practice and apply it the same week on a practice project. It pairs well with IIBA's free Business Analysis Standard: the Standard gives you the vocabulary, and this book shows you how to do the work.

Time and prerequisites

No prior knowledge is needed. At around 200 pages it can be read in a week of evenings, but it works best read slowly alongside a real small project, one practice at a time.

Free or paid?

It is a paid book, available in print and ebook from the publisher and major bookshops. Check your university library too; many carry Addison-Wesley titles digitally.

What you can do after reading it

• Run a structured elicitation for a small project.
• Write requirements and user stories with acceptance criteria that can be tested.
• Choose a prioritisation approach and explain it to stakeholders.
• Set up requirements baselines and simple change control for a project.

Common questions

Is it the same as the larger Software Requirements book? No. It is a shorter, newer book focused on the essential practices.

Is it useful for product managers? Yes. The chapters on understanding the problem, prioritising and validating apply directly to product work.

Best for: junior analysts, students and product people who want a practical grounding in requirements without a thousand pages.