Vision Document

<Project Name>

<Authors>

<Date>



<Note: everything surrounded by <> is either a placeholder to be filled in or a comment to be deleted. All tables contain fictional example entries which should be removed.>

<Source for this template: Managing Software Requirements: A Use Case Approach, Second Edition, by Dean Leffingwell and Don Widrig, pp. 175-176.  If a section is not applicable to your project, then put "not applicable".>

1. Introduction

<Provide an overview of the entire Vision Document.>

1.1 Purpose of the Vision Document

<State the purpose of the Vision Document: to collect, analyze, and define high-level user needs and features of the product>

1.2  Product Overview

<State the purpoise of the application, its version, and new features for delivery.>

1.3  References

<Provide a complete list of all documents referenced elsewhere in the Vision Document.>

2. User Description

<Briefly describe the prospective users of your system.>

2.1 User/Market Demographics

<Summarize the key market demographics that motivate your product descriptions.>

2.2 User Profiles

<Briefly describe the prospective users of the system.>

2.3 User Environment

<Describe the working environment, including elements such as applications and platforms in use, and specific usage models.>

2.4 Key User Needs

<List the key problems or needs as perceived by the user.>

2.5 Alternatives and Competition

<Identify any alternatives the user perceives as available.>

3. Product Overview

3.1 Product Perspective

<Provide a block diagram of the product or system and its interfaces to the external environment.>

3.2 Product Position Statement

<Provide an overall statement summarizing, at the highest level, the unique position the product intends to fill in the marketplace.  The following format is one possible method of accomplishing this:

For                            (target customer)
Who                          (statement of the need or opportunity)
The (product name)   is a (product category)
That                           (statement of key benefity, that is, compelling reason to buy)
Unlike                        (primary competitive alternative)
Our product               (statement of primary differentiation)
>

3.3 Summary of Capabilities

<Summarize the major benefits and features the product will provide

Customer Benefit         Supporting Features
Benefit 1                          Feature
Benefit 2                          Feature
Benefit 3                          Feature
>

3.4 Assumptions and Dependencies

3.5 Cost and Pricing

<Describe any elements of continuing product cost as well as anticipated product prince points.>

4. Feature Attributes

<Describe the feature attributes that will be used to evaluate, track, prioritize, and manage the features.  Here is one set of possibilities:

Status                        Proposed, Approved or Incorporated
Priority                      Critical, Important or Useful
Effort                         Low, Medium or High (in person-hours)
Risk                           Low, Medium or High
Stability                      Low, Medium or High
Target release            Version number
Assigned to                Name of team member
Reason                      Reason for assignment
>

5. Product Features

<This section of the document a table of the product features, using the feature attributes from Section 4.>

6. Exemplary Use Cases

<Describe a few key use cases, perhaps those that are architecturally significant or those that will most readily help the reader understand how the system is intended to be used, using the use case template for each use case provided>

7. Other Product Requirements

7.1 Applicable Standards

<List all standards with which the product must comply>

7.2 System Requirements

<Define any system requirements necessary to support the application, such as operating systems, network performance, and the like.>

7.3 Licensing, Security, and Installation

<Describe any licensing, security or installation requirements that also affect the development effort or that create the need for separate installation software.>

7.4 Performance Requirements

<Use this section to detail performance requirements.>

8. Documentation Requirements

<Describe the documentation that must be developed to support successful application development.

8.1 User Manual

<Describe the purpose and contents of the product user manual.>

8.2 Online Help

<List requirements for online help, tool tips, and so on.>

8.3 Installation Guides, Configuration, and Read Me Files

8.4 Labeling and Packaging

9. Glossary



To Do List

<List of items to be completed in THIS artifact.>

#

Who

Due

What

1




2





Revision History

Date

Who

Revision





Last updated: 09/12/2004 17:36:10Last updated: Sunday, September 12, 2004 10:13:30