Chapter 5. Measurable Requirements

This chapter discusses using the Sun architecture methodologies to translate customer business drivers and stated functional and operational requirements into a measurable Critical to Quality (CTQ) baseline for architectural analysis and solution testing. This chapter discusses techniques for collecting and analyzing CTQ baselines that are created with clearly traceable origins, clearly measurable success criteria, and clearly documented activities to make those CTQ measurements. This chapter also describes how the N1 Grid architecture can enable implementors to think of measuring and delivering a very different set of CTQs than previously available to them and some of the work required to collect, deliver, and use those measurements.

Two types of measurements are discussed in this chapter those that support the architecture methodology phases and those that serve as baselines for new CTQs. The measurements that support the architecture methodology are used to inform the architectural analysis and verification phases and enable the use of data-driven decisions at a tollgate where advancement to the next phase of the architecture methodology is being considered. The measurements that serve as baselines for new CTQs often require up-front preparation before that CTQ data can be measured or leveraged because IT organizations have not thought of pulling together the people, processes, and tools to measure the new CTQs that the N1 Grid solutions enable. IT organizations typically do not have this data collected and reported in data centers because the new N1 Grid CTQs are more business oriented. Two examples that many businesses do not currently measure are:

• Average time to market for a new business service. Businesses using the N1 Grid system reduce the time it takes to move a service through its production life cycle.

• Business services released during the year. By leveraging reduced production service life cycle times, businesses can count on that efficiency and release more services per year.

This chapter opens by presenting techniques that sharpen requirements gathering skills by focusing them on areas that N1 Grid technology emphasizes business drivers, architecture, and measurements that enable data-driven decision making. This chapter provides an overview of use cases and service life cycles that Sun and Sun customers have found extremely useful to guide documentation of the N1 Grid software functional and operational activities and capture derived requirements. These use cases and requirements serve as the basis for development and preproduction verification testing, as well as ongoing CTQ reporting in the final production environment. This chapter then discusses traditional CTQs and new N1 Grid CTQs on which requirements gathering can focus, along with examples to help you think about the new N1 Grid business solution space. The chapter closes with ideas to help you measure and discuss operational readiness and change acceptance, and it prepares you for the activities in the next chapter the architecture analysis phase.