?

How do you typically approach transforming high-level business requirements into detailed user
stories and acceptance criteria

Understand Business Needs:

Engage Stakeholders: I start by collaborating with stakeholders through workshops, interviews, or one-
on-one sessions to deeply understand their business needs and objectives.

Document Requirements: I gather all relevant information, ensuring I capture the problem, the desired
outcome, and any constraints or constraints.

Break Down Requirements:

identify Key Tasks: I decompose high-level requirements into smaller, manageable tasks or features that
can be addressed through user stories.

Create User Stories: I write user stories using the format: “As a [user], I want [goal] so that [reason].” This
ensures each story focuses on the user’s perspective and the value it provides.

Define Acceptance Criteria:

Specify Conditions: For each user story, I develop acceptance criteria that are Specific, Measurable,
Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART). This involves defining clear and testable conditions that
must be met for the story to be considered complete.

Include Details: I ensure that the acceptance criteria cover all necessary details, including functional and
non-functional requirements, edge cases, and any dependencies.

Review and Refine:

Collaborate with Stakeholders: I review the user stories and acceptance criteria with stakeholders to
ensure alignment and completeness. This helps identify any gaps or misunderstandings early.

Iterate as Needed: Based on feedback, I refine the user stories and acceptance criteria to better fit the
business needs and user expectations.

Prioritize and Plan:

Prioritize Stories: I work with the team and stakeholders to prioritize user stories based on business
value and dependencies.

Plan Iterations: I integrate the user stories into the development plan, ensuring they are ready for
implementation in upcoming sprints or development cycles.

This approach ensures that user stories are actionable, aligned with business objectives, and provide
clear guidance for development and testing.

Can you describe a time when you facilitated a workshop to elicit business requirements? What was
your approach, and how did you handle conflicting inputs?

Preparation:

Set Goals: I made it clear that we needed to decide on how the upload feature should work and what
both the users and the technical team needed.

Invite Stakeholders: I included people from marketing, IT, and other relevant teams to get all necessary
input.

During the Workshop:

Explain Goals: I started by explaining that we were focusing on the upload feature and why it’s
important.

Group Discussions: I split everyone into groups:

Marketing Team: Wanted an easy way to upload lots of files at once and use drag-and-drop.

IT Team: Was worried about how this would affect system performance and storage.

Share Ideas: Each group shared their needs and concerns. Marketing wanted bulk uploads and drag-and-
drop, but IT was concerned this might slow down the system or use too much storage.

Handling Conflicts:

Spot the Problem: The marketing team’s request for advanced upload features conflicted with IT’s
worries about system performance.

Facilitate a Solution: I helped both teams talk through their issues:

Marketing Team: Explained why they needed bulk uploads and a simple interface.

IT Team: Discussed how these features might slow down the system and take up a lot of space.

Find a Compromise: We decided to:

Start Simple: Begin with a basic upload feature that handles a reasonable amount of files and supports
drag-and-drop.

Improve Later: Monitor how the system performs and, if all goes well, gradually add more features like
larger bulk uploads.

Follow-Up:

Document Needs: I wrote down what we agreed on for the upload feature and any limitations.

Review and Confirm: I checked the notes with everyone to make sure we were all on the same page.
Plan Implementation: We used these notes to start building the DAM system, focusing first on the basic
upload feature and planning to enhance it based on feedback.

Outcome:

The workshop helped us create a balanced plan for the upload feature that met the marketing team’s
needs while addressing IT’s concerns. This way, we got a workable solution that improved over time.

What methodologies and tools do you use to document and manage functional and non-functional
requirements?

Methodologies:

Gathering Requirements:

Interviews & Workshops: Talk to stakeholders to understand their needs.

User Stories: Describe what users need to do.

Analyzing Requirements:

Prioritization: Rank needs by importance.

Feasibility: Check if the needs can be realistically achieved.

Documenting Requirements:

Functional Requirements: What the system should do (e.g., login feature).

Non-Functional Requirements: How the system should perform (e.g., speed and capacity).

Validating Requirements:

Review & Feedback: Get stakeholder approval on documents.

Prototypes: Create mock-ups to confirm requirements.

Managing Requirements:

Traceability: Track how requirements are met throughout the project.

Change Management: Handle updates to requirements as needed.

Tools:

Requirements Management:

JIRA: For tracking tasks and issues.

Confluence: For documenting requirements.

Microsoft Word/Google Docs: For writing detailed documents.

Excel/Google Sheets: For lists and tracking.

Prototyping:

Balsamiq/Figma: For creating mock-ups and designs.

Collaboration:

Slack/Teams: For team communication.

Miro/Mural: For brainstorming and planning.

This setup helps you collect, document, and manage requirements clearly and efficiently.

How do you go about defining the scope and objectives of a new system?

To define the scope and objectives of a new system, I follow these steps:

Research and Analysis:

Industry Standards: Begin by researching industry standards and best practices to understand what’s
typical for similar systems.

Benchmarking: Look at comparable systems to identify key features and common practices.

Stakeholder Input:

Gather Requirements: Conduct meetings, interviews, or workshops with stakeholders to understand

Define Objectives: Discuss what they want to achieve with the system, including business goals and
specific functionality.

Draft Scope Document:

Outline Boundaries: Create a scope document that defines what will and will not be included in the
system. This includes features, functions, and constraints.

Set Goals: Clearly state the system’s objectives, such as improving efficiency, increasing user satisfaction,
or meeting regulatory requirements.

Review and Refine:

Validate with Stakeholders: Review the scope document with stakeholders to ensure it aligns with their
expectations.
Adjust as Needed: Refine the document based on feedback to ensure it accurately reflects the agreed-
upon scope and objectives.

Final Approval:

Obtain Sign-Off: Once stakeholders agree on the scope and objectives, get formal approval to move
forward with the project.

Describe your process for breaking down large epics into user stories.

1. Understand the Epic:

What’s the Big Idea? Figure out what the epic is about and what it’s supposed to achieve.

2. Talk to Stakeholders:

Get Input: Ask the people involved what they need from this epic. Understand their main goals and
requirements.

3. Break It Down:

Find Main Parts: Split the epic into smaller parts or themes. These are like chunks that make up the big
goal.

Create User Stories: For each part, write user stories that describe specific features or tasks. Each story
should be a small, clear piece of what the epic is trying to achieve.

4. Define Acceptance Criteria:

Set Expectations: Write down what needs to happen for each user story to be considered done. This
helps everyone know when the story is complete.

5. Prioritize and Refine:

Order Stories: Decide which stories are the most important and should be worked on first.

Improve Stories: Make sure each story is clear and detailed as needed.

6. Review and Validate:

Check with the Team: Make sure the development team understands and agrees with the user stories.

Get Stakeholder Approval: Confirm that the stories meet the needs and expectations of the stakeholders.

7. Plan and Track:

Add to Backlog: Put the user stories into your project’s task list (backlog).

Track Progress: Monitor how the stories are progressing and make adjustments if needed.
Example:

Epic: “Improve User Account Management”

Talk to Stakeholders: Find out what features they want, like better security and easier profile
management.

Break It Down:

Themes: “Account Security,” “Profile Management”

User Stories:

For “Account Security”: “As a user, I want to set up two-factor authentication.”

For “Profile Management”: “As a user, I want to change my profile picture.”

Define Acceptance Criteria: For two-factor authentication, “User gets a verification code after enabling
the feature.”

Prioritize and Refine: Decide which user stories are most important and detail them out.

Review and Validate: Check with the team and stakeholders to ensure everyone’s on the same page.

Plan and Track: Add stories to your task list and keep track of progress.

This process helps turn a big project into manageable pieces that can be worked on one at a time.