Requirements Engineering and Solution Design

Summary

As part of the Custom Solutions (Pre-)Sales Flow, the Solution Architect has to figure out the technical requirements, constraints, and wishes of (potential) customers in the scope of their business needs, to then design a Solution based on VSHN Products, VSHN building blocks, and 3rd-party or customer building blocks — a Solution that addresses as much as possible of the customer’s needs.

Requirements Engineering

While VSHN offers standard products that can simply be ordered or even self-serviced, in many situations the value that VSHN provides is to collaboratively figure out what a customer might need to address their business and technical needs, so we can then find a fitting solution.

How we do this is a living process, also containing VSHN internals, and is therefore documented in our wiki: Solution Architect - Requirements-Engineering
This involves

  • Reading in the request that Sales received.

  • Asking questions on all the unclear aspects regarding what the customer needs.

  • Having multiple workshops and calls with different stakeholders and actors from the customer or third parties.

  • Documenting requirements and making sure no obvious/known aspects were forgotten to clarify — we use checklists for this.

Solution Design

Following Requirements Engineering, we design (figure out) a solution and document it (the concept), so that a later offer can be based on this, and once ordered, we and the customer know what we’ll need to deliver. This builds the foundation for managing customer expectations. That being said, solutions will always change over time, as we adapt them to changing requirements, constraints, and other factors during the Sales Process, Onboarding & Implementation, and in Operations.

How we do this is a living process, also containing VSHN internals, and is therefore documented in our wiki: Solution Architect - Solution Design
This involves

  • Identifying existing VSHN Products and Standard Building Blocks that offer part of a solution.

  • Identifying the missing pieces to offer a full solution to the understood requirements.

  • Collaboratively challenging requirements and options for a solution with the customer.

  • Collaborating internally at VSHN to define custom building blocks or adapt/extend standard building blocks.

  • Asking for limitations and giving feedback (customer insights) on VSHN Products to the Product Owner.

  • Finding ways around missing features of VSHN or 3rd-party products to still offer a solution.