Scenario Plus

List of Techniques for
Recording Goals

Goals are things that Stakeholders want to achieve (eg from the product under design), whether or not these are realistic or verifiable.

Goals:

are among the simplest and most direct expressions of need
form a valuable basis for identifying requirements
are permitted to conflict with each other (where stakeholders desire different things)
may or may not be practical and realistic to develop with the time, money, and skill available
may or may not be possible to quantify and verify satisfactorily
are useful for guiding analysis
when functional, form good names for use cases

Technique	Purpose	Suitable Tools	Procedure	Risks
Text	List the things that stakeholders say they want	Spreadsheet, Database, RM Tool	Write a list on a flipchart, whiteboard etc during a goals workshop.	Lack of traceability (unless imported to RM tool)
Goal Diagram / Model	Show graphically how the requirements come from agreed goals and objectives.	ScenarioPlus Goal Model (in Diagrams toolkit for DOORS requirements tool users)	Draw a bubble for each goal. Place the business' top-level objectives at the top. Place goals that support those objectives beneath them. Draw arrows between bubbles to show support (+) and conflict (-). If need be (optionally) show alternative subgoals eg by labelling with "OR" and joining their arrows with an arc of a circle. (It's also possible to use UML classes with subtype arrows (for OR) or composition arrows (for AND), but the syntax and semantics are tricky: and see Risks in the next column.) Note that this kind of diagram shows thinking moving backwards or top-down from Goals to subgoals.	Reluctance among non-software people to use diagrams and techniques that seem to come from the world of software / computers.
Goal Diagram / Model		Diagram editor eg Visio, Powerpoint		As above; Lack of traceability

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