Artifact: Vision
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| Defines the stakeholders view of the product to be developed, specified in terms of the stakeholders key needs and features. Containing an outline of the envisioned core requirements, it provides the contractual basis for the more detailed technical requirements. |
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| Role: | System Analyst |
| Optionality/Occurrence: | Created early in the Inception phase. Evolving during the earlier portion of the lifecycle. |
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| UML Representation: | Not applicable. |
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Purpose
The Vision provides a high-level, sometimes contractual, basis for the more detailed technical requirements. It captures the "essence" of the envisaged solution in the form of high-level requirements and design constraints that give the reader an overview of the system to be developed from a behavioral requirements perspective. It provides input to the project-approval process and is, therefore, closely related to the Business Case. It communicates the fundamental "why and what" for the project and is a gauge against which all future decisions should be validated.
Another name used for this artifact is the Product Requirement Document.
Timing
The Vision is created early in the Inception phase. It should evolve
steadily during the earlier portion of the lifecycle, with changes slowing during
Construction. It evolves in Conjunction with the Business Case and early drafts
of the Risk List, and is meant to be revised as the understanding of requirements,
architecture, plans, and technology evolves.
(See:
Artifact: Business Case, and Artifact:
Risk List).
The Vision serves as input to use-case modeling, and is updated and maintained as a separate artifact throughout the project.
Responsibility
A System Analyst is responsible for the integrity of the Vision, ensuring that:
- The artifact is created, then updated and distributed as required.
- Input from all concerned stakeholders is addressed.
The author of the initial Vision can be anybody, but as the project is established in Inception, the artifact becomes the responsibility of the System Analyst.
The Vision will be read by Stakeholders such as funding authorities, Managers, roles involved in use-case modeling, testers and the development team in general.
Tailoring
Tailor as necessary for your project's needs. It is generally good practice to keep the Vision brief in order to be able to release it to stakeholders as soon as possible, and to make it easy for stakeholders to review and absorb. This is done by including only the most important stakeholder requests and features, and avoiding detailed requirements. Details may be captured in the other requirements artifacts, or in appendices.
It is important to express the Vision in terms of its use cases and primary scenarios as these are developed, so that you can see how the vision is realized by the use cases. The use cases also provide an effective basis for evolving a test case suite.
Decide whether feature attributes are documented here or in the Requirements Management Plan. Decide what information (attributes) to include in the Vision, and which to manage using requirements management tools.
