How do you visually communicate requirements and relationships?

1 Why use visual models?

Visual models can offer many benefits for business analysis, such as eliciting, organizing, and prioritizing requirements from different sources and perspectives. They can also help to identify gaps, conflicts, dependencies, and risks in the requirements. Furthermore, visual models can be used to verify and validate the requirements with stakeholders to ensure they are aligned with the business goals and needs. Additionally, they can help to communicate the requirements and relationships to the development team and other stakeholders in a concise and consistent way. Finally, visual models can help to document the requirements and relationships for future reference and maintenance.

2 What are the types of visual models?

There are many types of visual models that you can use for business analysis, depending on the purpose, scope, and level of detail of your project. For instance, business process models such as flowcharts, swimlane diagrams, and BPMN can help you understand the flow of activities, events, decisions, and data in a business process. Data models like ERD, class diagrams, and data dictionaries can define the data requirements, rules, and quality standards for a system. Use case models including use case diagrams, use case descriptions, and user stories can define the functional requirements, scenarios, and test cases for a system. Finally, user interface models like wireframes, mockups, and prototypes can assist in defining the user experience, usability, and accessibility requirements for a system.

3 How to choose the right visual model?

When selecting the right visual model for your project, it's important to consider the audience, purpose, scope, and standards. Who are you communicating with and what is their level of knowledge and interest? What is the main message or question you want to convey or answer? What is the scope of the project or the problem you are trying to solve? Are there any industry best practices, templates, or tools you can use or adapt? It's essential to think about these factors in order to create and maintain a high-quality visual model that meets the needs of your audience and supports your analysis and decision making.

4 How to create a visual model?

Creating a visual model requires a systematic process; you must define the objectives and scope of the model, gather and analyze the relevant information and data, select and apply the appropriate type and format of the visual model, review and refine it, then present and document it. Additionally, you need to consider where to find reliable information and data, how to use symbols, colors, labels, and legends to represent the information and data, how to check and validate accuracy, completeness, and clarity of the visual model, as well as how to solicit feedback from stakeholders. Finally, you must consider how to deliver and display the visual model to the intended audience, explain and interpret it, store and update it.

5 How to improve your visual communication skills?

If you want to improve your visual communication skills, you should practice and learn from others. Study and compare different examples of visual models from various sources and domains to understand their strengths and weaknesses, as well as how you can apply or adapt them to your own projects. Experiment with different tools and techniques for creating and editing visual models, noting the advantages and disadvantages of each. Additionally, seek and provide feedback on your own and others' visual models to gain insight into the criteria and methods for evaluating and improving them. Finally, give and receive constructive and respectful feedback.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?