Managing Software Requirements: A Unified Approach

Chapter 4. The Five Steps in Problem Analysis

Key Points

• Problem analysis is the process of understanding real-world problems and user's needs and proposing solutions to meet those needs.

• The goal of problem analysis is to gain a better understanding, before development begins, of the problem being solved.

• To identify the root cause, or the problem behind the problem, ask the people directly involved.

• Identifying the actors on the system is a key step in problem analysis.

This chapter focuses on ways in which the development team can understand the real-world needs of the stakeholders and users of a new system or application. As most systems are built to solve a particular problem, we'll use problem analysis techniques to make sure we understand what ...