IT Business Requirements and SWOT Analysis

1/18/22, 11:58 PM Business Requirements

1/4

Learning Topic

Business Requirements A requirements analysis involves a systematic evaluation of needs derived from a

company's business goals and strategy. One approach to determining requirements

involves the classification of functional and nonfunctional system requirements.

Functional Requirements

Functional requirements are at the heart of systems or technology development.

Functional requirements specify the behavior of a system and determine what the system

should do. These requirements are developed well before the acquisition or development

of systems. The activity can be performed during the system design and can be

application- or architecture-driven. For example, a functional requirement for a calculator

would be "must be able to add, subtract, multiply, and divide numbers."

Typical functional requirements are (Eriksson, 2012):

business rules

transaction corrections, adjustments, and cancellations

administrative functions

authentication

authorization levels

audit tracking

external interfaces

certification requirements

reporting requirements

historical data

legal or regulatory requirements

1/18/22, 11:58 PM Business Requirements

2/4

These rules determine things such as operations, systems reports, and workflow. These

requirements are also the determining factor when evaluating system compliance.

Typically, the flow of functional requirements incorporates such things as user request,

feature, use case, and business rule.

Examples of Functional Requirements

User request: I need to send secure messages in the new application.

Feature: End-to-end encryption when sending messages.

Use case: This feature will be enabled when the application sends communications

to the database.

Business rule: All encryption must be FIPS 140-2 compliant.

Nonfunctional Requirements

Nonfunctional requirements specify how the system will support the functional

requirements. They may include ways of verification of functional requirements

fulfillment, as well as any remaining requirements that are not covered by the functional

requirements.

While functional requirements are necessary to make the system or component work

nonfunctional requirements can determine how well the system or component works

because they describe the "quality characteristics" or "quality attributes" of the functional

requirements (Eriksson, 2012).

Typical nonfunctional requirements include (Eriksson, 2012):

performance (e.g., response time, throughput, utilization, static, volumetric)

scalability

capacity

availability

reliability

recoverability

maintainability

1/18/22, 11:58 PM Business Requirements

3/4

serviceability

security

regulatory

manageability

environmental

data integrity

usability

interoperability

Examples of Nonfunctional Requirements

Availability: The Online Payment System will be available for users between the

hours of 5:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. EST.

Capacity: Up to 1,000 total users can use the system.

Maintainability: Changes required by law will applied at least 3 months before the

law becomes enforceable.

Reliability: Will be available to users 98 percent of normal working hours.

Security: Only users with the role "Administrator" or "Supervisor" can make changes

to the system.

References

Eriksson, U. (2012, April 5). Functional vs. non functional requirements [Blog post].

Retrieved from http://reqtest.com/requirements-blog/functional-vs-non-

functional-requirements/

Requirements. (n.d.). Non functional requirements. Retrieved from

http://www.requirements.com/glossary/nonfunctionalrequirements/tabid/91/def

ault.aspx

1/18/22, 11:58 PM Business Requirements

4/4

Cloud Computing and Information Technology Strategy

(https://leocontent.umgc.edu/content/scor/uncurated/cca/2218-

cca610/learning-resource-list/cloud-computing-and-information-

technology-strategy0.html?ou=622270)

© 2022 University of Maryland Global Campus

All links to external sites were verified at the time of publication. UMGC is not responsible for the validity or integrity

of information located at external sites.

Resources