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The Better Business Analysis 
Institute presence, the Better 

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Business Analysis podcast with 
Tinsman Walsh. 

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Welcome back to the BA bite 
session. 

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And this week we are going to be
talking about how to capture non

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functionals the right way. 
That's right. 

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Non functional requirements are 
a special type of requirement. 

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They focus on the non functional
elements of the solution or 

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process that you're going to be 
capturing requirements for. 

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But unlike other user story 
types, other requirement types, 

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non functional requirements are 
deeply coupled and deeply focus 

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on the solution components. 
OK, so one way of looking at 

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that or explaining that are the 
features or the solution behind 

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the features that ultimately is 
going to be built or bought or 

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considered as part of options 
analysis. 

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And So what you need to do when 
you do non functional 

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requirements is actually 
something that's not, I guess, 

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traditional in terms of BA. 
What you need to do is you 

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really need to work really 
closely with the architecture 

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team within your organization. 
And if you don't have one, then 

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you can look at external sources
to help you with this non 

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functional requirements. 
Talk about different elements of

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the system. 
There are categories for non 

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functional requirements and 
there actually is if you like a 

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pretty good finite list that you
can use. 

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Saying that another way, non 
functional requirements can 

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actually be used as a checklist 
exercise. 

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OK, so you can actually have a 
pre list of non functional 

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requirement areas and you can 
work through with your product 

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owner, business owner, whoever 
your your setup is for your 

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project. 
And you can go through them one 

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by one, ideally with the help of
a tick league or an architect to

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explain what those non 
functionals mean. 

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They are generally in technical 
language, but they should be 

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written as a requirement in more
business language. 

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And I'll and I'll give you an 
example in just a minute. 

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This is not how you do business 
analysis when capturing 

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requirements at the highest 
level or at the functional 

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level. 
And IIBA talk about solution 

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requirements or requirements 
that actually relate to the 

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solution. 
This is one of the areas, but 

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specifically non functional 
requirements is unique. 

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And so you use different 
techniques for this, right? 

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So how do you actually do this? 
So top tip, the top tip is you 

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load up an Excel spreadsheet, 
right? 

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You put in the different 
conceptual solution component. 

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Don't worry about what they that
you've got them, right? 

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So they might be simply back end
UI, just really, really high 

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level chunks of the solution. 
So these are the ones where 

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users are wanting to perform 
functions with or interact with.

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So they are actually your 
feature areas. 

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We'll go on to that on another 
day. 

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And they, they can just be 
conceptual, OK, enough that the 

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architect generally knows what 
you're talking about when 

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talking about them. 
The solution and how that's put 

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together, the Lego blocks that 
they use may be completely 

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different and that's OK. 
OK, It's just talking about 

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areas. 
So that's your that's your focus

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area. 
So I would say that it's good to

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use that as your actor. 
So what I say is as a new 

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education website, right? 
That's the feature or that's the

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feature group. 
So that's cool. 

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New website. 
So we've talked about the 

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general conceptual area. 
I want to write so that I can. 

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So you use the same language you
use as user stories and it's #1 

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same template. 
But some of our non functional 

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requirements have something that
I would refer to as metrics and 

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measures. 
All right, so you can actually 

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expand that user story pattern 
for those types. 

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OK, it doesn't. 
This applies to about 8090% of 

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the non functional requirements 
you might have. 

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You can probably use some 
someone can take the opportunity

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to read and write them all. 
So they have a metrics measure, 

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you know, and A and a pattern. 
So they have the ultimate non 

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functional list. 
But I'll give you an example. 

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So as a new education website, I
would like loading response 

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times. 
That's the non functional 

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element loading response times, 
right? 

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And yes, you could have a 
functional requirement that 

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talks about I want the I want to
be able to quickly, you know, 

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access or I want the page to 
load. 

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But this is really a non 
functional requirement. 

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So sometimes you don't pick 
these up as a functional area. 

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And that's why non functionals 
are so important. 

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They actually translate to non 
functional areas. 

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So you need to use this list, 
which is a finite list and 

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you'll say as a education 
website, I want to respond 

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right? 
Or load within. 

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And then you could have a metric
load within X seconds. 

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OK, So load within being the 
being the metrics and X seconds 

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being the measure so that I load
like the most common website 

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that users are used to 
experiencing, right? 

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So a user, for example, will get
the experience of what they 

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think fast load times are on a 
website based on the general 

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loading that's expected from a 
website, right? 

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So that metric is usually 
captured by eco programs or web 

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performance programs. 
And they generally say about two

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seconds. 
If if you're website takes 

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longer than two seconds, it's 
going to take a while to load. 

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OK. 
And there are so many technical 

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elements that go into making 
sure that that runs that way. 

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OK, It's not as easy as just 
running in two seconds. 

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It's actually easy to create a 
website and make it reload in 

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five seconds, right? 
But if your website is reading 

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information from other systems, 
is responding with content that 

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needs to be pulled from a back 
end, is running on CMS system, a

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content management system like 
WordPress, it will need to be 

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optimized to be able to run in 
two seconds. 

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It can't too much content. 
There are so many implications 

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of that requirement that it 
actually matters, right? 

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But let's just say our product 
owners saying, well, we need 

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this website to run like the 
standard website out on the 

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Internet that users are used to 
using. 

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So we have a non functional 
requirement. 

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That's one example. 
There will probably be about 50 

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non functional requirements if 
it was both a web and back end 

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project. 
OK, that gives you an idea of 

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the magnitude. 
And they're all written the same

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kind of format, the same 
pattern. 

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And I just want to be clear that
some of these are not just 

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metrics based. 
Some of them are binary based. 

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So if you have a piece of 
legislation that requires you to

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hear with, for example, native 
language, you're in a country 

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which has native speakers and 
your responsibility is to serve 

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them as well, then it could. 
It's just simply that as an 

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education website, I will be 
able to present content in both 

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English and in native language X
so that I can cater for both 

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English speakers and our native 
audience, right. 

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So you would replace that with 
whatever your native peoples are

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and in our case Maori in New 
Zealand, that's pretty common. 

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So you know, you would be able 
to do bilingual on the website. 

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Again, that has huge 
implications to how you build 

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the system, how you translate 
and all the rest of it and how 

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you capture content. 
But that's the non functional 

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requirement. 
So this is quite a a really good

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topic. 
You can spend hours on it, but I

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want this to be a bite. 
So you go through that list, 

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right? 
And you get that list from a 

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list of architects and there are
categories and there are sub 

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questions. 
So that list is finite. 

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If you don't have it, search on 
the Internet. 

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We have a great list at the 
Better Business Analysis 

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Institute. 
Once you get onto our courses, 

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it's part of our toolkit. 
But there is a finite list. 

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You can start building yours 
today and if you don't have any 

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for your project, just start 
right for that one project. 

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You'll start that 50 or whatever
you'll get close and then you 

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can take that and reuse that 
across any of your other 

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projects. 
So it's like a one off exercise.

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Yes, they evolve OK, and they 
get they they change as system 

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solutions change. 
And that's why non functional 

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requirements are so deeply 
coupled with solutions. 

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When we when single sign on was 
introduced, that now became a 

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feature that people wanted. 
They didn't know it and they 

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might not tell you as ABA in the
functional area and the 

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requirements captured that they 
want to not have to log in twice

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when they used a multiple 
systems across your 

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organization. 
But that's now a feature that's 

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there. 
So that would be included in 

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your non functionals and you'd 
be prompted as ABA to go, Oh, 

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would you like the system to 
allow users to just log in once 

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to the domain and then they can 
have access to this new 

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solution? 
And they're like, yes, yes, of 

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course. 
And they would have you would 

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have never come up with that if 
it wasn't in this checklist. 

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That's why it's so important. 
Obviously the non functional 

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requirement would say, you know,
or as a solution, I, I'm going 

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to implement single sign in so I
don't have to maintain my own 

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list of usernames and passwords,
which is a, which is causes the 

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potential for security risk. 
That's really why why we have 

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single sign on from technical 
point of view. 

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So you have your your Excel 
spreadsheet, you load in your 

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actor, which is your solution 
components. 

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You have what they want to do 
just in the user format. 

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And some of those will have 
metrics. 

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You have a checklist and you go 
through down with the product 

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owner, ideally with a technical 
person who can explain some of 

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those things. 
And those won't just have 

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technical things in them. 
Just to be clear, some of them 

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will have legislation and laws 
and company policies that need 

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to be applied to the solution. 
So if there is something around 

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you, you are building something 
that's extra secure as holding 

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personal information. 
There'll be non functional 

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requirements will most likely be
must have as in the product 

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owner doesn't really have much 
choice around how you store that

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information because there's 
legislation that's imposed on 

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you. 
They should all be in the non 

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functional requirements. 
OK, so the easy way is to do 

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that in Excel, have a 
standardized list, go around, do

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a bit of work on that, and then 
it's actually really easy. 

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You just take that list every 
single project and you just go 

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through it and you evolve it. 
And I believe that the ultimate 

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list of non functionals for your
organization, the matrices, and 

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it won't be written perfectly 
and it won't be written in your 

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Excel spreadsheet format, should
be owned by the architecture 

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team, right? 
That's my Bo bite. 

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I hope you learned something 
about non functionals and how 

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you can get started on those. 
Obviously not an in depth 

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secession, but I'll make sure I 
do one in the future.