Are Your Web Meetings Wasting Time?

Getting your business requirements defined is tough enough; adding the difficulty of having to deal with different locations and time zones can drive you up the wall. You might have tried web or online meetings to get your team going and finish your business analysis tasks but you were unhappy with the results. What if you could get the critical user requirements in the less time while improving the quality? Try Virtual Requirements Gathering Meetings. Fill out the form on the right and get a free project evaluation or call (813) 319-5851.

What is a virtual (online) requirements gathering meeting?

A virtual requirements gathering meeting combines collaboration technology with top-notch business analysis and meeting facilitation techniques. The purpose is, of course, to discover and document business requirements from a widely dispersed group. We have developed a series of online requirements sessions that build up from initial project analysis to the completion of a business requirements definition document. Use our extensive professional experience to help you discover more requirements and produce a better business requirements document (see sample TOC in pdf).

Pros

• Virtual requirements meetings can be held anywhere, anytime (as long as all required participants have access to the web).
• They offer a new dimension in instant, electronic documentation (capture–as–you–speak reduces unnecessary paperwork).
• Virtual meetings save a ton of travel costs (that should get the bean–counters on board).
• The previous 2 points mean that virtual meetings are environmentally friendly (that should get the environmental vote — maybe we should call them “green meetings”).
• They are safer by far (no risk of airplane, train, or automobile accidents if you don’t travel!)
• They are healthier (proven to limit the spread of viruses — the human kind, not electronic. Given the variety of bugs currently circulating around the world, this one alone would be reason enough to try this approach.)
• They are reasonably weather–independent (no more nights snowed in at airports, hallelujah!).
• They are considerably less intrusive on your private life.
• Nearly everyone has become accustomed to virtual meetings in some form or the other.
• Everyone involved can access and share any kind of electronic material to emphasize the need for a specific requirement (or to refute it).

Requirements Gathering Help for
Widely Distributed Teams!

RSG offers highly experienced requirements facilitators and requirements analysts to run your virtual (online) requirements gathering meetings. Our teams conducted over 300 successful requirements definition JAD sessions for organizations spanning the globe. We pioneered virtual session facilitation and documentation techniques that make our sessions run smoother and produce more. Our facilitators learned from hundreds of projects how to help the business community figure out what they need and to express that need in the form of business / user requirements. Our experienced business analysts developed and enhanced web-based methods for capturing, clarifying, and confirming user requirements as they are uncovered.Get your free project evaluation. Fill out the form below.

Cons

• People miss the face-to-face dimension (camaraderie, synergy, socializing - we are, after all, still human beings).
• Jokes and humor are riskier on–line (and never underestimate their role in human communication).
• Because you can’t read people’s body language (non-verbal communication), there is a higher potential for misinterpretation — both ways.
• People do not always stay on task in the meeting (unless they are well facilitated).
• Some people enjoy traveling to new places to see airports and hotel rooms they have never seen before.
• It is difficult for some to express their thoughts in front of people they can’t see.

We have developed solutions for every one of these issues that plague on-line meetings. We leverage the pros and combat the cons to make sure that your requirements gathering experience is as pain-free as we can possibly make it.

Recap

Virtual Requirements Gathering Meetings are the latest tool in our arsenal for waging war on incomplete and misunderstood business requirements. If you don’t get the requirements right in the beginning, who knows what solution you will deliver in the end? With a good business requirements document, you can prove that what you delivered was what they requested – and that can go a long way. Call us (813) 319-5851! We are virtually everywhere. The web is a wonderful place to visit, but don't go there alone.