Approach 2: Integrated Processes-and-Rules Base

USoft TeamWork offers you the unique possibility of taking down all of a customer's "ramblings" about requirements of the future system regardless of whether they are talking about Business Processes, data-oriented Business Rules, or anything else (such as computer interface requirements), while still allowing you to structure, qualify and categorize them later.

This way you don't need to worry about what topic they cover, how they may be structured and related, and what priority they may have until a later time.

When you reflect on the requirements later, you can gradually refine categorizations and add information. This way you end up with an integrated processes-and-rules base in which you can perform queries right across process-oriented, data-oriented and other types of information. You don't spend time categorizing and qualifying what you may not need (indeed, what you might drop altogether) later.

To use this approach in USoft TeamWork:

•At entry time, just focus on the Description of rules and process steps, using some dummy ID code such as a sequence number. The only thing you might want to record other than the actual text description is where the "rambling" came from (such as a session, telephone conversation or document).

•At a later time, convert process-oriented requirements into USoft TeamWork Business Process Steps by setting the Business Process Step flag to Yes. At this point, you need to think of a name for that Business Process Step. Let the Sequence Number be a default such as 10 if you don't want to decide about it. You can then build processes from steps at a later time if needed.