LS   Agency - Confidential 

 Visualization 

 Challenge 

 I work for software development projects and I am in the business analyst department thus one of 

 my key responsibilities have always been requirement communication . My requirement cycles 

 cover requirements from the client to the development team and the final solution from the 

 development team to the client . As my organization is into the traditional waterfall methodology , 

 we are always required to have a requirement document ( SRS ) sign off before we commence 

 development . 

 This has become a major challenge as most of the time the client does not read the SRS and signs 

 off blindly . We , in the end have to absorb change requests later in the process in order to maintain 

 good client relationships and achieve more business from the client . When investigated on why 

 the client does not read through the SRS , it was brought to our attention that the document was too 

 long with too much text or complex for normal business users . Thus , we needed to find a solution 

 where the customer understands the solution provided in a simple manner . 

 Selection 

 We started visual aids during solution recommendation , the core solutioning team with the 

 business analyst used diagramming methods such as UML and process diagrams to understand the 

 requirements and the solution but this is not effective for a client . This was considered too complex 

 to be explained to our business client as we had to explain each and every notation within the 

 diagramming . Then we analyzed prototyping methods for visual aids for the customer , we treid 

 both high fidelity and low fidelity mock ups , we tested with colleagues from different teams who 

 did not have any prior knowledge about the project . But they seemed to understand the system 

 better and was even able to provide input to improve the solution further . As we tested only on one 

 module we understood that high fidelity mock ups utilized more resources and time which was 

 costly while it produced similar results to low fidelity . Therefore , we selected low fidelity to reduce 

 the time taken and the number of resources utilized as most waterfall projects do have a strict 

 deadline and a budget and if this fails it would be a cheaper option to fail with . 

 LS   Agency - Confidential 

 Application 

 Initially we got the solution and the business analyst team to start drawing up screens on paper for 

 the requirements provided . When these were finalized and we had to search for a tool where it can 

 be best depicted with the flow and added to the document in a formal manner The team started 

 searching for various tools   from the most simplest tool such as MS Paint , MS Word , MS 

 PowerPoint and online tools such as Balsamiq and Mockflow . Balsamiq was clear winner due to 

 the simpler screens and the ability to mock a requirement journey . 

 But as our organization is a Microsoft partner , it was a strategic decision to use Microsoft 

 PowerPoint . Microsoft PowerPoint can produce wireframes via the wireframe plug in which is not 

 included in the basic PowerPoint package . Applying all we had on paper was an easy task after the 

 tool was selected . It already had the basic screen components such as labels , text boxes , containers , 

 dropdowns . Etc . We were able to apply everything on paper to the document within a day . 

 Approach 

 Even though we covered all the requirements to screens within the document . This did not seem 

 enough , to achieve validation from the customer . So , we made slides for each functionality 

 showing the user the mockup flow , for example “ How do we add a user to the system ” . We created 

 a set of slides where we navigate from the main menu ( 1 slide ) , to add new user information ( 1 

 screen ) and to view the new user added in the user list ( 1 slide ) . 

 Making these flows allowed us to cover the requirements provided by the client . And provided us 

 with a systematic approach to present all the functionality to the client and give them a flavor of 

 the system to be built . 

 Another way of sorting this out would have been for us to control navigations by inducing a logic 

 in the buttons which will mimic the way the system works . Then we would have been able to let 

 the customer play around the system where we would have also obtained feedback based on 

 usability . 

 Insight 

 We tested the idea using a session with all the users of the system with our slide deck . What was 

 amazing is the feedback from the client , for example they would request for more fields in a screen 

 LS   Agency - Confidential 

 or to remove additional fields . They took a step further and printed out our screens from the slides 

 and tested them with real data . They covered the business process which was an indication that the 

 system would be a success as we were able to cover all most 95 % of the current manual process 

 through the system . 

 There was a difference to our previous approach we were not able to get a sign off on the first 

 attempt with this approach . The client request for the feedback to be incorporated in to the 

 document , if the scope allows or that they were willing to go for a change request as they 

 determined these features as crucial . 

 The highlight of this scenario is that we were able to identify the changes at an earlier level , 

 compared to identifying them later during user acceptance testing . And this approach also built 

 higher confidence from the client towards the organization . True this would take time , but in the 

 long run this was a better approach when compared to incorporating changes later in the software 

 development cycle which would wreck the deadline and cause cost overrun . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: 
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: LS   Agency - Confidential 

 Visualization 

 Challenge 

 I work for software development projects and I am in the business analyst department thus one of 

 my key responsibilities have always been requirement communication . My requirement cycles 

 cover requirements from the client to the development team and the final solution from the 

 development team to the client . As my organization is into the traditional waterfall methodology , 

 we are always required to have a requirement document ( SRS ) sign off before we commence 

 development . 

 This has become a major challenge as most of the time the client does not read the SRS and signs 

 off blindly . We , in the end have to absorb change requests later in the process in order to maintain 

 good client relationships and achieve more business from the client . When investigated on why 

 the client does not read through the SRS , it was brought to our attention that the document was too 

 long with too much text or complex for normal business users . Thus , we needed to find a solution 

 where the customer understands the solution provided in a simple manner . 

 Selection 

 We started visual aids during solution recommendation , the core solutioning team with the 

 business analyst used diagramming methods such as UML and process diagrams to understand the 

 requirements and the solution but this is not effective for a client . This was considered too complex 

 to be explained to our business client as we had to explain each and every notation within the 

 diagramming . Then we analyzed prototyping methods for visual aids for the customer , we treid 

 both high fidelity and low fidelity mock ups , we tested with colleagues from different teams who 

 did not have any prior knowledge about the project . But they seemed to understand the system 

 better and was even able to provide input to improve the solution further . As we tested only on one 

 module we understood that high fidelity mock ups utilized more resources and time which was 

 costly while it produced similar results to low fidelity . Therefore , we selected low fidelity to reduce 

 the time taken and the number of resources utilized as most waterfall projects do have a strict 

 deadline and a budget and if this fails it would be a cheaper option to fail with . 

 LS   Agency - Confidential 

 Application 

 Initially we got the solution and the business analyst team to start drawing up screens on paper for 

 the requirements provided . When these were finalized and we had to search for a tool where it can 

 be best depicted with the flow and added to the document in a formal manner The team started 

 searching for various tools   from the most simplest tool such as MS Paint , MS Word , MS 

 PowerPoint and online tools such as Balsamiq and Mockflow . Balsamiq was clear winner due to 

 the simpler screens and the ability to mock a requirement journey . 

 But as our organization is a Microsoft partner , it was a strategic decision to use Microsoft 

 PowerPoint . Microsoft PowerPoint can produce wireframes via the wireframe plug in which is not 

 included in the basic PowerPoint package . Applying all we had on paper was an easy task after the 

 tool was selected . It already had the basic screen components such as labels , text boxes , containers , 

 dropdowns . Etc . We were able to apply everything on paper to the document within a day . 

 Approach 

 Even though we covered all the requirements to screens within the document . This did not seem 

 enough , to achieve validation from the customer . So , we made slides for each functionality 

 showing the user the mockup flow , for example “ How do we add a user to the system ” . We created 

 a set of slides where we navigate from the main menu ( 1 slide ) , to add new user information ( 1 

 screen ) and to view the new user added in the user list ( 1 slide ) . 

 Making these flows allowed us to cover the requirements provided by the client . And provided us 

 with a systematic approach to present all the functionality to the client and give them a flavor of 

 the system to be built . 

 Another way of sorting this out would have been for us to control navigations by inducing a logic 

 in the buttons which will mimic the way the system works . Then we would have been able to let 

 the customer play around the system where we would have also obtained feedback based on 

 usability . 

 Insight 

 We tested the idea using a session with all the users of the system with our slide deck . What was 

 amazing is the feedback from the client , for example they would request for more fields in a screen 

 LS   Agency - Confidential 

 or to remove additional fields . They took a step further and printed out our screens from the slides 

 and tested them with real data . They covered the business process which was an indication that the 

 system would be a success as we were able to cover all most 95 % of the current manual process 

 through the system . 

 There was a difference to our previous approach we were not able to get a sign off on the first 

 attempt with this approach . The client request for the feedback to be incorporated in to the 

 document , if the scope allows or that they were willing to go for a change request as they 

 determined these features as crucial . 

 The highlight of this scenario is that we were able to identify the changes at an earlier level , 

 compared to identifying them later during user acceptance testing . And this approach also built 

 higher confidence from the client towards the organization . True this would take time , but in the 

 long run this was a better approach when compared to incorporating changes later in the software 

 development cycle which would wreck the deadline and cause cost overrun .
### Output: 