• Glossary
• Supplementary Specifications
• Use-Case Model
• Vision

A person acting in this role needs to be, above all else, an expert in identifying and understanding problems and opportunities. This includes the ability to articulate the needs that are associated with the key problem to be solved or opportunity to be realized.

In addition to this, a person playing this role needs to be a good facilitator and must have above-average communication skills. Knowledge of the business and technology domains are useful additional skills for those acting in this role. However, these skills may be of less importance if the individual has the ability to absorb and understand new information quickly. As a core role in the project team, a person playing this role must be able to collaborate effectively with other team members.

This role can be assigned in the following ways:

• Assign one or more staff members to perform this role only. This is a commonly adopted approach and is particularly suitable for large teams or where the requirements are particularly complex, difficult to elicit or where the requirements are particularly challenging to define and manage.
• Assign one staff member to perform this role and the Role: Test Manager or  Role: Deployment Manager. This strategy is a good option for smaller or resource constrained test teams. A person filling both these roles needs to have strong management and leadership skills as well as a prerequisite understanding of the domain or the ability to develop that understanding.