Requirements for an MDM Solution

About the Book

Working on Requirements for a Master Data Management solution and looking for thoughts on how to approach the requirements? You may be able to leverage this guide!

The focus of this guide is to highlight a proven approach for requirements gathering and documentation for Master Data Management solutions. Requirements gathering and documentation activities are similar, regardless of the type of solution. What differs is the approach, the emphasis of specific activities, and the content of work products. MDM projects do not come along often; this guide can serve as a roadmap for how to approach requirements for an MDM solution.

The guide begins with a brief overview of Master Data Management. The guide then steps through the requirements activities and work products for each Solution Development Lifecycle phase. The requirements work products are described, along with an example of each work product. Below is a summary of the phases and primary work products produced:

• Alignment: where the Business Requirements, including solution Features are defined
• Solution Scoping: where the Solution Requirements, including Information Requirements, Business Rules, and Epics (Functions), are defined
• Functional Requirements: where a given Epic (Function) is elaborated on, including inputs, outputs, data updates, business rules, an activity diagram, and associated User Stories
• User Stories: where Acceptance Criteria is defined

Keys to success are identified for the various phases. In addition, for Solution Scoping, there is a section which focuses on how to approach, plan, and track Solution Scoping. Finally, there is an overview of Change Management and Traceability.

The guide contains 46 illustrations, 32 of which are examples of work products. It includes many visual work products, which help to ensure a consistent understanding of the solution.

The guide assumes some familiarity with requirements gathering techniques and work products; it does not focus on techniques. The guide demonstrates how to structure the various requirements activities, to successfully gather and document requirements for an MDM solution. The guide also does not focus on formulating an MDM Business Case, MDM Architecture, or technical system requirements. The guide is intended to assist requirements analysts in formulating an approach for how to gather and document requirements for a Master Data Management solution.
About the Author: Vicki is a requirements analyst, with more than 33 years of experience in information technology. She began her career as a programmer / analyst and over the years has held various positions within information technology including: Project / Program Manager, Application Development Manager, Test Coordinator, and Requirements Analyst. The last 15 years has been primarily focused on requirements. Vicki has more than 25 years of experience working on Enterprise Data / Master Data Management type solutions. She has developed requirements for several MDM initiatives, across various domains, within multiple organizations, working with different consulting companies, built on a variety of MDM software systems. The last MDM project she worked on was a completely new MDM initiative in a domain where there was very little structured information available. Clear and concise requirements were essential to ensure that multiple concurrent development efforts could proceed efficiently after Solution Scoping. While the majority of her time has been spent working on MDM solutions, she also has experience developing requirements for other types of systems including: Data Warehouse, Front End Application, Core Processing, and Transaction Processing systems. She developed this guide to share with other requirements analysts the approach she uses to gather, document, and manage requirements for a Master Data Management solution. This approach has evolved over time, incorporating lessons learned from prior experiences.