Database develop. life cycle - Requirement Analysis in Database Development

Requirement Analysis in the Database Development Cycle. This is one of the most important phases, because if requirements are not properly understood, the entire database design can fail to meet the organization’s needs.

1. Purpose

Requirement analysis is about gathering, documenting, and validating what the database must achieve.

  • It ensures the system aligns with business goals and user expectations.

  • It forms the foundation for conceptual design, logical design, and implementation.

2. Types of Requirements

  1. Business Requirements

    • High-level objectives of the organization.

    • Example: “The database should help generate monthly sales reports for management.”

  2. User Requirements

    • What end-users expect from the system.

    • Example: “Sales staff should be able to quickly check a customer’s purchase history.”

  3. Data Requirements

    • What data needs to be stored, processed, and retrieved.

    • Entities, attributes, relationships.

    • Example: “Store customer name, address, phone number, purchase details.”

  4. Functional Requirements

    • Operations the system must support.

    • Example: “The system should allow searching for products by category.”

  5. Non-Functional Requirements

    • Performance, security, reliability, usability.

    • Example: “Reports must generate in under 10 seconds.”

3. Steps in Requirement Analysis

  1. Stakeholder Identification

    • Find out who will use or be affected by the database: managers, employees, customers, regulators.

  2. Requirement Gathering Techniques

    • Interviews (one-on-one with stakeholders).

    • Questionnaires/surveys.

    • Document analysis (current forms, spreadsheets, reports).

    • Observations (watch how users interact with current systems).

    • Workshops/brainstorming sessions.

  3. Requirement Documentation

    • Write down requirements clearly (in plain language).

    • Create Use Cases or User Stories (e.g., “As a sales manager, I need to generate a customer report so that I can track loyalty.”).

  4. Requirement Validation

    • Review requirements with stakeholders.

    • Ensure they are complete, consistent, and realistic.

  5. Requirement Prioritization

    • Rank requirements as must-have, should-have, nice-to-have.

    • Helps manage scope and focus on essentials first.

4. Example

Suppose we are building a University Student Database:

  • Business Requirement: Improve academic record-keeping.

  • User Requirement: Professors want to access student grades securely.

  • Data Requirement: Store student ID, name, courses, grades, attendance.

  • Functional Requirement: Generate transcripts automatically.

  • Non-Functional Requirement: Only authorized staff should access student data (FERPA compliance).

5. Why It Matters

  • Prevents building the wrong database.

  • Ensures user satisfaction by meeting real needs.

  • Provides a blueprint for the next stages (conceptual and logical design).

  • Reduces costly changes later in development.