requirements-gathering

SKILL.md

Requirements Gathering

Table of Contents

Overview

When to Use

Quick Start

Reference Guides

Best Practices

Overview

Effective requirements gathering establishes a shared understanding of what will be built, preventing misalignment and expensive changes later in the project.

When to Use

Project kickoff and planning

Feature development initiation

Product roadmap planning

System modernization projects

Customer discovery

Stakeholder alignment sessions

Writing user stories and acceptance criteria

Quick Start

Minimal working example:

# Identify and analyze stakeholders

class StakeholderDiscovery:
    STAKEHOLDER_CATEGORIES = [
        'End Users',
        'Business Owners',
        'Technical Leads',
        'Operations/Support',
        'Customers',
        'Regulatory Bodies',
        'Integration Partners'
    ]

    def identify_stakeholders(self, project):
        """Map all stakeholder groups"""
        return {
            'primary': self.get_primary_stakeholders(project),
            'secondary': self.get_secondary_stakeholders(project),
            'tertiary': self.get_tertiary_stakeholders(project),
            'total_to_engage': self.calculate_engagement_strategy(project)
        }

    def analyze_stakeholder_needs(self, stakeholder):
        """Understand what each stakeholder needs"""
        return {
// ... (see reference guides for full implementation)

Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the references/ directory:

Guide
Contents

Stakeholder Discovery
Stakeholder Discovery

Requirements Elicitation Techniques
Requirements Elicitation Techniques

Requirements Documentation
Requirements Documentation

Requirement Validation & Sign-Off
Requirement Validation & Sign-Off

Requirements Traceability Matrix
Requirements Traceability Matrix

Best Practices

✅ DO

Engage all key stakeholders early

Document requirements in writing

Use specific, measurable language

Define acceptance criteria

Prioritize using MoSCoW method

Get stakeholder sign-off

Create traceability matrix

Review requirements regularly

Distinguish must-haves from nice-to-haves

Document assumptions and constraints

❌ DON'T

Rely on memory or verbal agreements

Create requirements without stakeholder input

Use ambiguous language (quickly, easily, etc.)

Skip non-functional requirements

Ignore constraints and dependencies

Over-document trivial details

Rush through requirements phase

Build without stakeholder agreement

Make scope changes without process

Forget about edge cases and error conditions

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