JAD Workshops
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The document discusses the importance of Joint Application Design (JAD) workshops in identifying business requirements, highlighting their structured approach that brings together IT professionals and business users to collaboratively determine system requirements. It contrasts traditional information-gathering techniques, such as interviews and questionnaires, with JAD, emphasizing JAD's advantages in terms of time efficiency and group consensus. The text outlines the preparation, execution, and benefits of JAD workshops while acknowledging that no technique is foolproof and that user input is crucial for successful outcomes.
JAD Workshops
- 1. Gather data to identify business requirements JAD Workshops
- 2. JAD Workshops There are two main types of workshops that we are interested in as information gatherers: Joint Application Design (JAD) - or Joint Requirements Planning (JRP) - and Brainstorming .
- 3. JAD Joint Application Design (JAD) was developed by IBM in the late 1970s. method that brings together business and IT professionals in a structured workshop to determine and discuss system requirements. Benefits received from adding JAD to currently used information gathering tools include savings on time and resources, and systems requirements written through cooperation of future users and IT development teams. (what are some of the methods looked at last week)
- 4. Systems development process The systems requirements identification stage is one of the most important integral parts of the process, that can "make or break" the project. Results of reviewing industry statistics are there to prove it: "60% to 80% of errors originate in the user requirements and functional specification" stage.
- 5. Traditional requirements elicitation techniques The most common techniques of requirement elicitation are interviews and questionnaires These techniques allow IT professionals to get feedback on the processes of the organisation as they are now, and get a sense of what is lacking in the current system.
- 6. The following disadvantages are evident: It is hard to set convenient time for interviews with all the people able to provide insight into the problem. Usually many follow-ups are necessary for clarification, making the process more expensive. Not as many people from various parts of the company are interviewed, because of cost, so there exists high possibility for bias. Even with structuring interview questions, analysts have to do a lot of guesswork when choosing aspects most beneficial for business needs of the organisation
- 7. Questionaires- Cheaper option A cheaper way to get feedback from users is a questionnaire. Questionnaires can reach a large number of users in a short period of time. They are easier to analyse than interviews, because they consist of multiple-choice and true and false questions created with an interpretation system in mind. They are not as time consuming as interviews are.
- 8. questionnaires disadvantages: It is hard to create questionnaires that will give all possible answer options customer wants to give There is always a high risk of question ambiguity. Access to emotional feedback is impossible, unless follow-up interviews are scheduled, subsequently adding to the cost.
- 9. Therefore, these traditional information-gathering techniques need a counterpart or a substitute that will eliminate, at least in part, problems plaguing the analysis process. Joint Application Design (JAD) is a great addition to the usual requirement determination processes.
- 10. Joint Application Design (JAD) The old saying - "Two heads are better than one"- gives a great basis for understanding on importance of group work. Teamwork makes one modern technique of systems requirement identification very successful .
- 11. Joint Application Design (JAD) JAD brings team approach into play gathering users from various departments and IT specialists together in 3-to-1 ratio for a structured work session It allows users to share their opinions on the current system, and gives a chance through shared purpose to come to a consensus on what needs to be changed
- 12. Joint Application Design (JAD) is a technique ensuring that requirements that are received in outcome are approved by all participants, and not only by decision of system analysts collecting the requirements JAD systematizes the systems requirement process, solving project managers dilemma of uniting disciplined approach to systems analysis with flexible user coordination
- 13. JAD Workshops Usually JAD workshops last for 3-5 days with several sessions, and require several key participants to be present : Executive Sponsor - owner of the systems that is being discussed. Members of IT team that will be working on the project, mainly systems analysts, but possibly programmers, database administrators, etc. Business Users - people who have expertise of business operations. Users should be represented in two types: employees that will use the system in their day-to-day operations, and employees who are "responsible for standards and methodology for business functions they represent
- 14. JAD Workshops continued During JAD session users contribute their views on current processes and on what will have to be changed. All the information received during the discussion is recorded by a scribe. And finally, a facilitator - a person who runs the machine of requirement gathering process. It is facilitator's goal to direct and sustain discussion, make sure that goals of the session are achieved. "Good facilitators listen, recognize issues as they arise, and provide leadership and direction to help people come together"
- 15. Pre JAD Workshop preparation
- 16. 1-3 weeks before workshop executive team must identify : Project and its objectives Objectives of workshop and its deliverables Participants that will be most beneficial to the project Tentative agenda of JAD sessions, and choose place, time, tools to be used. Without good preparation, without clear plan of action workshop can become a disorganised waste of resources.
- 17. Reasons why JAD is effective in the requirement identification process: JAD decreases time and costs associated with requirements elicitation process . During 2-4 weeks information not only is collected, but requirements, agreed upon by various system users, are identified. JAD sessions help bring experts together giving them a chance to share their views, understand views of others, and develop the sense of project ownership
- 18. Reasons why JAD is effective in the requirement identification process: The techniques of JAD implementation are well known, as it is "the first accelerated design technique available on the market and probably best known" and can easily be applied by any organisation. Easy integration of CASE tools into JAD workshops improves session productivity and provides systems analysts with discussed and ready to use models.
- 19. Disadvantages of JAD Systems analysts always have to keep in mind that none of techniques they use are a full-proof way to acquire the information, neither is JAD.
- 20. Quality system requirements provide a foundation for success of any project. Good requirements should be verifiable and attainable, and to achieve this is impossible without user input However, to use a cliché - "Time is money", therefore JAD as a rapid information-gathering technique, should be learned and used by systems analysis teams. JAD sessions offer organisations ability to get detailed information in a short period of time, which means it saves money and resources that could be used elsewhere.