Clarity and precision are essential when crafting system requirements for business processes in Campfire.
Well-defined requirements enhance team collaboration and ensure the final product delivers real value to users and stakeholders.
Here’s a guide to help you create impactful system requirements aligned with best practices in Salesforce and Certinia.
1. Follow the Standard User Story Format
User stories form the backbone of effective system requirements. This proven format ensures clarity:
As a [user type], I want [desired action] so that [goal or benefit].
Example: As a customer, I want to quickly filter search results by price to find products within my budget.
This straightforward structure keeps user needs at the forefront.
2. Keep Stories Small & Focused
Best Practice: Write user stories that are small enough to be completed in one sprint or iteration but large enough to deliver meaningful value.
Why it’s important: Smaller stories are easier to estimate, develop, and test. If a story is too large, break it into smaller, more manageable tasks.
3. Emphasize User Value
Best Practice: Emphasize the "why" behind each story—what value does it bring to the user or business? Ensure the goal or benefit is clear.
Why it’s important: This keeps the focus on delivering real, actionable benefits rather than just implementing features.
4. Include Acceptance Criteria
Best Practice: Each user story should have clear Acceptance Criteria—a set of conditions that must be met for the story to be considered complete.
Why it’s important: Acceptance criteria define the boundaries of the story, reduce
ambiguity, and ensure alignment on the definition of "done."
Example: Given a list of search results, only products within the selected price range should be displayed when a user selects the price filter.
5. Collaborate with Stakeholders
Best Practice: Work closely with stakeholders (users, product owners, developers) to ensure the story reflects their needs and expectations.
Why it’s important: Collaboration ensures that the user story captures the right functionality, helps avoid misunderstandings, and increases stakeholder buy-in.
6. Prioritize Based on Business Value
Best Practice: Prioritize stories that provide the most value to the user or organization. Use frameworks like MoSCoW (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won't have) for prioritization.
Why it’s important: Prioritizing high-value stories ensures that the most critical features are delivered first, driving impact early in the project.
7. Write Independent & Testable Stories
Best Practice: Write stories that can be completed independently of other stories, whenever possible.
Why it’s important: Independent stories reduce dependencies between tasks, making development smoother and more flexible.
8. Ensure Stories Are Testable
Best Practice: Write stories in a way that they can be easily tested. The acceptance criteria should be measurable and clear, enabling effective testing.
Why it’s important: Testability ensures that stories can be verified during development and quality assurance, minimizing defects and rework.
9. Keep Language Simple and Clear
Best Practice: Use clear, concise, and non-technical language that all stakeholders, including developers, testers, and business users can understand.
Why it’s important: Simple language reduces the risk of misinterpretation and confusion, especially when collaborating across different teams.
10. Use INVEST Criteria
Best Practice: Ensure your user stories meet the INVEST criteria:
Independent: Should be self-contained and not dependent on other stories.
Negotiable: Not a rigid contract; stories should be open to refinement.
Valuable: Provides clear value to the user or business.
Estimable: Can be reasonably estimated by the team for effort.
Small: Can be completed within a single sprint or iteration.
Testable: Has clear acceptance criteria for validation.
11. Incorporate Feedback Loops
Best Practice: Gather feedback from stakeholders and iterate on the user stories based on their input.
Why it’s important: Feedback ensures that stories align with business goals and user expectations as the project evolves.
12. Define Non-functional Requirements Where Necessary
Best Practice: Include non-functional requirements (performance, security, usability) when relevant to the user story.
Why it’s important: Non-functional aspects are critical for system performance and user satisfaction but are often overlooked in functional stories.
