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Requirements Gathering

You happen to run into a long-time friend and spend a few minutes catching up on things. Duane, the owner of a multi-facility self-storage business called Extra Attic Mini Storage, Inc., has come to realize that his business needs help. The loss of one of his key personnel has forced a lot of the daily activities of the business upon him, and thus pointed out serious problems in his current system. His main data source, the Daily Activity Sheets, requires far too much manual processing. His initial thought is to automate his processes, with the main goals being time savings and reduction of errors. You mention to him you are now with a consulting firm that focuses on Information Engineering/Re-engineering projects, and suggest the firm to him. He thinks it is a great idea, and a new Information Engineering project begins.

After getting some more background information on Extra Attic, you take the project back to your firm. After discussing Duane's initial thoughts with one of the Senior Consultants, the team decides to develop an initial proposal to begin working on the Extra Attic project. You visit Duane to get additional details to develop the proposal and begin your background research.

Based on conversations with Duane regarding his current accounting and gate security system software, you are able to do some Internet searching on COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) software currently available. You schedule a facilitated meeting with Duane, the Senior Consultant, and yourself to deliver the proposal and develop the scope of the project. This is the first step in the methodology followed by the team.

Facilitated Client Discussion

8:30 For the first 15 minutes or so, you allow the client to free-flow, asking him the open-ended question of "How do you describe your business?" The goal here is to get the "Big Picture" of how Duane sees both Extra Attic and what he feels the problems are. He identifies three main goals;

1. Better tracking/automation of his customer's payments
2. Improved security, including the ability to automatically "lock-out" customers that are behind in their payments past a certain point. "Locking out" means their access to the facility gate security system will be disabled until their account is back in order.
3. Allow for the building of a Customer Payment History database

A secondary goal is to derive Marketing information from the Customer Payment History database, which will obviously store more than merely payment records. Most of his thoughts here center on various views of his customer's demographic profiles.

Again, the time required for the Daily Activity Sheets is discussed. He estimates this takes between 40 - 50% of his time. Reducing the time here is a major goal of the system in his mind.

Next, the conversation moves toward some of the operational issues of the business; how things are done (processes), and how things are organized (structure). It is clear to Duane that Extra Attic is going to need changes in both areas.

Duane is asked why he feels automation of the Daily Activity Sheets is necessary. He identifies four areas he feels this can help him with;

1. Potential future expansion, again coming back to his desire for the Marketing/demographic information.
2. Report generation/tracking, while he is not totally without business reports, he knows his information is not as current or detailed as it could be.
3. Time savings, both for him to be free to better manage the business as a whole, and for his site managers to provide better customer service.
4. Tracking, not just financials but usage rates and other criteria.

8:45 From here, the Senior Analyst begins to identify and define the key interests of the Client:

1. Customer Demographics
2. Market Areas - new locations
3. New Products, i.e. Climate controlled units
4. Current Problems Areas - "No Pays", these can eventually get to the point of Duane having to auction the unit's content for recovery, in any given month he can expect up to 25% late pays
5. Provide capabilities to manage varying payment schedule - Duane tries to minimize variability
6. Override late charge/paid thru dates at the facility level
7. Identify seasonal relationships - i.e. do rentals go up in the summer

Duane believes that Extra Attic's "late-pays" notification process needs improvement, the goal being to reduce the number of renters that need to go to collection status. Currently, these notifications are manually prepared by the facility manager.

Another factor discussed is the payment methods utilized. Currently Extra Attic only accepts cash and checks. There is no credit card processing or auto-withdrawal from a checking account system in place.

9:00 Here, the conversation turns to more operational areas.

The facility managers, and their specific responsibilities, are discussed. The manager's main responsibilities are daily rentals, tracking/processing of the late notices, and handling the "overlocks".

Extra Attic has explored the possibility of "partnering" with moving companies for short-term rentals, but at this point Duane does not feel it is a large market for him. While he has seen limited success with this, the volume of units involved was relatively small, and did not merit further efforts.

9:10 Future goals and a more in-depth discussion of Extra Attic's needs come next.

Business Record Storage is discussed as a potential marketing opportunity. The team determines that this topic belongs more under the heading of "potential future expansion", and re-focuses on more immediate concerns.

Duane reemphasizes his feeling that data is being handled more times than is necessary, and is limiting his time to promote the growth of Extra Attic, or pursue other business opportunities.

Again the topic of Security comes up, more specifically Gate Control, this being the main safeguard. This access is usually handled via a keypad entry system, and access can be denied to any renter that is overdue past a certain point. The criteria used to determine access again focuses on financial status, and since the Senior Analyst sees the circular path the conversation is taking, she decides it is time to begin a preliminary model.

9:15 You, the Senior Analyst and the Client begin a preliminary model of the business. This is a high level diagram at this point, the goal being to identify the main business areas (Entities) and understand the relationships between them. While the client may not understand all the symbols and relationships detailed in the model, he is helpful in identifying the subject areas and interactions involved. This discussion also yields further insights as to how Duane views his business and the goals he has for the new system.

9:40 Once the general precepts of the model are agreed upon, Duane further details the business rules he operates under. These are discussed in order to develop the Statements that will be linked to the appropriate model entities in the CASE tool. While the articulation of the Business Rules is to be done later, the subject areas discussed include;

1. Current daily processes
2. Historical problems; keying errors, customer activities that create operational problems
3. The Extra Attic corporate structure
4. The current process workflow and its inherent problems; i.e. the current system cannot stop a vacate in mid stream, requiring a shut-down and lost information to stop a vacate.
5. Duane feels the "Home Office" needs to be able to get reports that provide snapshots of the business, both corporate-wide and for the individual facilities. Anything that would lead to developing trend analysis is a big plus.
6. Again, the level of access control were evaluated
7. Some physical implementation issues are addressed, with another of consultants who will most likely handle the implementation getting the details and preferences he needs. For example, Duane is asked if he wants a networked system, or does he want to visit the facilities each day and pick up disk. Not surprisingly, he prefers networked, subject to feasibility.
8. Converting the existing data Extra Attic has in a Dbase database system is also addressed. During software evaluations, that may be an area to investigate.

10:30 The next meeting is scheduled for early next week, with the goals being to 1) deliver the Statements for the Visible Advantage CASE Tool, and 2) pick up further information about Extra Attic's the current hardware.

At this point, you are satisfied that you have enough to go on for now, and the client leaves. You and the Senior Analyst spend some time fleshing out the preliminary model, while the conversation is still fresh in your minds. Some more entities that the client did not expressly identify are determined and are added to the preliminary model.

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