Juvenile Probation Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Juvenile Probation - Essay Example The jurisprudence today looks at these youngsters as victims of society rather than as perpetrators of a crime. There are many improvements and reforms being implemented in the juvenile justice system and one of these is the increasing use of probation to help wayward youngsters avoid jail time. In this regard, a highly recommended approach is the use of information technology to improve the probation administration system by giving probation officers access to vital data in a flash. High Performance Teams – one of the best game-changers in the administration of a juvenile probation system is the use of the new information technology (IT). The use of IT is a positive influence on those who need to monitor several hundreds or even thousands of the youngsters on probation. With an IT system in place, probation officers can obtain the needed information to make their jobs easier. Information technology has long been recognized as the enabler that has a big positive impact on soci al work practice. The information contained in a database will allow probation officers to make better decisions with regards to using a correct intervention modality with regards to a particular juvenile â€Å"probationer† because they have at hand information about that youngster.

The impact of teacher collaboration on student academic achivement Research Paper

The impact of teacher collaboration on student academic achivement compared to the impact of non-collaboration of teachers on s - Research Paper Example The researcher will use the subject checkpoints and the district interim test and observe them as they collaborate. The observation method would be conducted at the Clifton Middle school located in 6001 Golden Forest, Houston, Texas. The aim of the descriptive research is to verify formulated hypothesis (there will be significant impact of teacher collaboration on student academic achievement as compared to the impact of non-collaboration of teachers on student academic achievement) that refer to the present situation in order to evaluate it. Research Procedure The research study is proposed to be conducted in Clifton Middle school located in 6001 Golden Forest, Houston, Texas. A simple observation method would be applied aiming to solicit response from the teachers to validate and support the identified hypothesis. In case there are points of deviation, proposed interviews would be scheduled and conducted to clarify points of contentions. The comparative analysis that would be devel oped after the observation would be conducted in the subject areas of the subject areas in math, science, arts and social studies on how teachers collaborate to determine how their collaboration affects student achievement. As previously noted the researcher will use the subject checkpoints and the district interim test and observe them as they collaborate. The possibility of applying the observation method to the faculty members assigned on the indicated subjects of the school is proposed to solicit comprehensive information on the perception and practice of teacher collaboration on the relevant population. Initial tabulation of results would be made to verify if there are points of deviation that need to be clarified. In this case, the specific teachers providing responses that caused significant deviations would be scheduled for interview to sort out the issues and clarify points of review. Population Selection and Demographics Clifton Middle School enrolls 1,070 middle school st udents from grades 6 to 8. The head school administrator, Ms Beverly Teal, oversees the school's large faculty, including sixty-five full-time "equivalent" teachers serving the student body with an average class size of 16.3. The majority of students enrolled are Hispanic, making up about sixty-four percent of all students. To comply with the objective of the study, the whole population of 65 teachers would be observed as they teach and conduct instructions on the subjects above mentioned. Sample Size The sample size is the size of the population, comprised of all the faculty members of the school, totaling 65 in all. With an average class of 16.3 students, the researcher would observe teachers as they conduct their classes on the subjects of math, science, arts and social studies and determine how teachers’ collaboration affects student achievement by comparing results of district interim tests with subject checkpoints. Instrument Design As indicated the instruments to

Distinctly Visual Essay Essay Example for Free

Distinctly Visual Essay Essay Explore the ways the distinctly visual is viewed through experience of others Distinctly visual images are viewed through experiences of others, which are significant in developing portraits of the environment and relationships. Henry Lawson’s ‘Loaded Dog’ and ‘Drovers Wife’, produce distinctly visual images through the experience of characters relationships with each other and their ability to survive in the harsh Australian environment. Similarly, John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’ looks at the environment, as a way to develop the relationship between characters and as a result creating a distinctly visual image for the audience In the prescribed text ‘Loaded Dog’, Lawson, develops visuals through the use of larrikin behavior in the Australian environment. The emptiness and often-hopeful feelings in the outback are shown through low modality ‘supposed to exist in the vicinity’, representing the hardships experienced in the Australian outback. Lawson creates vibrant visuals, enabling the reader to understand the vivid sounds in the outback. The use of onomatopoeia ‘the live fuse†¦ hissing and fluttering’, creates a distinct visual, and highlights the rich and exciting nature the Australian environment has to offer. Lawson signifies how experiences in the Australian outback, can create larrikin relationship between characters in the text. Tommy the dog, is seen as the troublemaker throughout the text and through the use of anthropomorphism ‘he took life, the world, his two legged mates, and his own instinct as a huge joke’, the reader is able to understand how relationships are developed through the experiences in the gold mining environment. Tommy’s ‘fun-loving nature’ is reflected upon his ‘two legged mates’, who develop humor in the text, in order to create distinctly visual images. Through repetition ‘Run Andy run!’ and vernacular ‘Don’t foller us’, the reader can develop a visual of the men running around in a panicked frenzy, allowing their experiences to create a vivid portrait. The jokey nature between the men allow the reader to develop a distinct visual of the men as ‘larrikins’, and their relationship as fun and friendly. The rhetorical question ‘how’s the fishing going Da-a-ve?’, enables Lawson to  highlight the fact the men create distinct relationships between each other, which led to a comedy of errors, allowing the reader to understand their experiences in the harsh Australian outback. Lawson has demonstrated distinctly visual images, through the detailed and realistic description of people and the environm ent, allowing the reader to depict images in the Australian outback. In the prescribed text ‘Drovers Wife’, Lawson demonstrates that experiences of the isolated and harsh environment creates a relationship with the surrounding Australian outback, create distinctly visual images for the reader. Images are created of her fighting a bush fire, presenting a further challenge for the drover’s wife to conquer in the harsh environment. Lawson demonstrates this through alliteration ‘grass grow’, creating a distinctly visual image, through the experience of the formidable Australian outback. Through colour imagery ‘ big black yellow eyed dog of all breeds’, the reader is able to understand the rough and tough, characteristics that enable the dog to survive in the outback. This colour imagery draws attention to the hard relationship between the dog and the family, and the experiences that enable the dog to protect the family. The Dog creates a distinctly visual image to the reader as Lawson highlights the tight bond between the family and the dog, and the effort they all make to protect each other. This is demonstrated through the simile ‘Tommy, who worked like a little hero’, creating a heroic characteristic that helps the family survive in the unforgiving environment. The relationship between the mother and the kids is shown through the vernacular ‘blast me if I do’, highlighting the empathy the son has for his mother and the distinctly visual bond that has developed. The cruel environment takes its toll on the drover’s wife and her experiences create distinctly visual images. Short syntax ‘she cried then’ demonstrates the relationship between her and the environment and how at times, it gets the better of her, creating a portrait of sorrow. The symbol of the ‘young lady’s journal’, stresses the Drover’s Wife and her ability to leave her womanhood in the past, in order to confront the formidable Australian outback, creating a visual that demonstrates her experiences formed from her relationships in the environment. Lawson creates a text that develops distinctly visual images, through experiences of the drover’s wife  surviving in the unkind environment. In the prescribed text ‘Of Mice and Men’, John Steinbeck creates a distinctive relationship with the characters and uses vivid images to create a backdrop to the environment. Through the clarity of the environment, the reader is able to understand that the environment, determines the moods and relationships of the characters. The simile ‘flies shot like rushing stars’ and assonance ‘the deep green of the Salinas River’, demonstrates where the ventures of the men will take place, and the descriptive language creates a distinctly visual image through the experience of the men. Steinbeck identifies the environment as a warm and peaceful setting through the visual imagery ‘the sycamore leaves whispered in a little night breeze’. These vivid images create a way to understand the natural beauty of the environment, which is significant in that the environment produces different experiences for the characters and therefore creating a distin ctly visual image. Steinbeck uses light and darkness to create symbolism. ‘The two men glanced up, for the rectangle door of sunshine was cut off. A girl was standing there’. The reader is able to visualize the light as hope and dreams, and Curley’s wife, symbolizing the cut off of these dreams. These experiences create distinctly visual images. The relationship between characters Lennie and George demonstrates that experiences of the men in the rugged environment shape the visual images. Zoomorphism ‘Lennie dabbled his paw in the water’ and characterization ‘the first man was small and quick dark of face with restless eyes’, shows the comparison between the men, and how their different characteristics enables a friendship between the men. One predominantly the leader, and the other the follower. The relationship of how the men interact with each other is demonstrated through vernacular ‘they said we was here when we wasn’t’, enables the reader to understand and visualize their experiences. In the related text ‘Loaded Dog’ and ‘Drovers Wife’, Henry Lawson highlights the importance of relationships in surviving in the harsh Australian bush. Through the relationships in the bush, the reader can understand how the characters experiences create distinctly visual images. Similarly in John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’, the environment determines the experiences  that the characters face, which further develops their relationship creating a distinctly visual image.

Separation of Histone Protein

Separation of Histone Protein For estimating protein mixture qualitatively most widely used method is SDS-Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (SDS-PAGE). According to size of the protein, this SDS-PAGE is separate the protein and purification of protein is to be monitored by this method, and relative molecular mass of protein can also be determined. In this SDS-PAGE anionic detergent is SDS. Before loading the sample, the samples are boiled for 5minutes, that contain s SDS and à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ¢Ãƒ ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ­mercaptoethanol in the buffer. While boiling the sample the SDS act to denature the protein and where à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ¢Ãƒ ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ­mercaptoethanol decrease the disulphide bridges of the protein that are holding tertiary structure of protein .by this denature process the protein get fully denatured and form a rod shape structure with negatively charged molecules of SDS throughout polypeptide chain. Every couple of amino acids binds with one SDS molecule on average. Due to the negatively charge SDS the structure remain s as rod like. So repulsion take place between the negatively charge on proteins and no folding occurs and remains rod shape. In the sample loading buffer, contains bromophenol blue and sucrose or glycerol. The bromophenol blue is helpful in monitoring the sample, when electrophoresis running and glycerol give density to the sample that can settle at the bottom of the well on stacking gel. The samples are loaded on the electrophoresis gel, which is made up of two gels .the lower gel is main separating gel and upper gel is stacking gel. This stacking gel helps in loading the sample into wells and had large pore size. Where protein sample moves freely and makes the protein sample concentrate and forms sharp band and enters into main separating gel with effect of electric field. Here isotachophoresis take place. The glycinate ion which is negatively charge has lower mobility than SDS-proteins molecule in running buffer than cl- ion in stacking and loading buffer. At the higher field strength both cl- and glycinate travel at same speed. So these ions and protein adjust those concentrations. The separating gel has higher PH environment, once glycine receives it become highly ionised state and mobility increases. By this the cl- and glycinate leaves the SDS-protein molecule. Now the SDS-Protein molecule moves towards the anode in separating gel by the effect of electric field. Here the protein having smaller size moves faster and reaches to the bottom of the gel than protein having larger size, with the help of bromophenol blue dye we can indicate the electrophoresis front because smaller particle unretarded the dye colour. When dye comes bottom of the gel then turned off the current, remove the gel from the sandwich properly and stained with coomassie brilliant blue and then by using destainin g solution, gel is washed. Depending on the protein size the preparation of polyacrylamide gel is used like 15%, 10% and 7.5%. By the help of the standard protein the mobility of unknown can be calculated by using calibration curve. In SDS-PAGE the protein should give single band, then that protein is said to be pure. So for purification protein process SDS -PAGE is most widely used. To the cluster of eight histone protein (H1-H8) DNA is wounded around. By the help of histone and DNA chromatin is made. The regulation of expression of genes and organisation of DNA is done by the help of histone proteins. Due to histone protein modification we can keep the genes active or silent and modifications are like methylation and acetylation. The transcription factors take place by the modulate accessibility of DNA by histone modification. DNA access might blocked by histone methylation to transcription factors. Electrostatic interaction might change due to histone acetylation in chromatin and allows transcription after opening up DNA. In blood cells development in chicken the principle of the histone modification is clearly demonstrated. In the transition the structural and functional role is played by histone protein between the states of active and inactive chromatin.high degree of conservation consists in histone . This is due to structural maintained constraining the e ntire nucleosomal octameric core. In the gene regulation and epigenetic silencing the diverse role play by a histone proteins.DNA replication, repair, transcription and recombination are influenced by the post translational modification, interactions with chromatin remodelling complexes and histone variants. DNA is packed in the nucleus and forms a complex called chromatin. The first level of chromatin organization is represented by the nucleosome core particles. The octameric core is composed of 146-147 bp of DNA that are tightly wrapped around two copies of histone H2A, H 2B,H3 and H4. Nucleosome cores are associated with linker histone H1 and separated by variable length of linker DNA. Core histone internucleosomal interactions are mediates by composing packed nucleosome arrays to start helical model. Due to the presence of histone fold domain the core histone are characterised and variable lengths of N-TerminaL tails are extensive subjects for post translational modifications. T he epigenome are the component of post translational modifications hence that includes protein connected to its gene and changes in DNA occur. For regulation of gene expression the epigenetic mmodifications are act as switches. DNA and histones are its chemical modifications .which does not disturb the sequence changes to DNA. The organisms reveal a variety of striking similarities despite histone tail and core variation due to characterization of structural nucleosome core particles. Using structural information they reanalysed histone fold domain variably sequence in a novel fashion. The variable pair of histone protein are H2A and H 2B and the conserved one are H4 and H3. In eukaryotes histone proteins are associated with DNA and are positively charged, this is due to presence of positively charged amino acids like lysine and arginine . H 1, H2A, H 2B histone are rich in lysine and H3 , H4 are rich in arginine. Each nucleosome consists of 8 histone proteins. Around one nucleosome to another nucleosome 200bp is present in DNA. In a circle of 1 nucleosome 146 bp are present. Where 54 BP are present in connection link of DNA between 1 nucleosome to another nucleosome. In nucleosome H1 histone is absent.here linker DNA connects two nucleosomes and H1 protein present in linker DNA. H1 protein takes an active role in formation of eukaryotes and heterochromatin. Genetic and epigenetic changes both involved in breast carcinogenesis and it is a multi step process. Epigenetic is a change that observed in gene expression in both reversible and heritable by the gene sequence without alteration. In cancer that influence the two major epigenetic changes are DNA methylation and histone modification interactions is well orchestrated. Malignant and premalignant breast neoplasm is methylated by involvement of several genes in metastasis, proliferation and antiapoptosis. In breast cancer treatment with other systemic therapies, histone deacetylase inhibitors become synergistically an important class of drugs. Potentially reversible processes are epigenetic changes and for finding novel therapies and refined diagnostic of breast cancer many efforts has been done for understanding the mechanism. MATERIALS AND METHOD: 30% W/V Acryl amide /Bis acrylamide Tris Hcl 3.0M, PH = 8.8 (lower gel) Tris Hcl 0.5M, PH =6.8 (upper gel) Bio-rad mini protean tank TEMED Ammonium persulphate (APS 25%W/V) Running buffer Bromophenol blue Sample buffer Coomassie blue stain Human recombinant proteins H4,H3.3, H2B, H2A EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE: SDS -PAGE GEL PREPARATION: PREPARATION OF GEL CASSETTE SANDWICH: The casting frame is taken and place on the flat surface. Select the glass plates to make a sandwich and place the short plate on the spacer plate and fix the casting frame to make sandwich. Fix the casting frame to the stand and the sandwich glass plates on the gray rubber gasket. Then checked the sandwich plates with distilled water to ensure any leakage occur. Prepare the resolving gel into a beaker without adding TEMED and APS. Add TEMED and APS into the prepared resolving gel and mix the solution homogenously and immediately pour the mixed solution into the sandwich plates, more than half of the glass plates. Allow the resolving gel for 35-40 minutes to get gel polymerised. Wash the resolving gel with distilled water and discard the water from sandwich, dry the inner surface by using filter paper. Prepare the stacking gel into another beaker without adding the TEMED and APS. Added TEMED and APS and mix equally and pour it on the top of the resolving gel and gently place the comb on the top of the stacking gel. Then leave the stacking gel overnight for its polymerization. RESOLVING GEL AND STACKING GEL PREPARATION: Resolving gel: acrylamide/bis-acrylamide 10.0ml,3.0M Tris /Hcl (PH=8.8) 3.75ml,dH20 15.8,10% SDS 0.3ml,TEMED 0.015, Ammonium Per sulphate 0.15. Stacking Gel: Acrylamide/bis acrylamide 2.5ml,0.5M Tris /Hcl (PH 6.8) 5.0ml,dH20 12.26ml,10% SDS 0.2ml,TEMED 0.015ml,Ammonium persulphate 0.04ml. Separation of H2A/H2B/H3.3/H4 Human Recombinant Protein using 1D SDS-PAGE Gel . After overnight polymerisation taken out the comb carefully and well are washed with running buffer. Remove the gel sandwich from the casting stand and allow to place them in the electrophoresis tank placing short plate facing inwards. Fill the gel electrophoresis tank with running buffer up to halfway between inner chamber i.e. 125ml and in the mini tank add 200ml of running buffer. SAMPLE PREPARATION AND LOADING: Taken the sample of histone protein of à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ±Ãƒ ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  Ãƒ ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ­l and added into the sample buffer of 20à ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ­l eppendorf tube. The protein samples are labelled to each tube. The histone protein samples are heated to 100o c for 2 minutes in hot block and at room temperature allow cooling down. Now samples of histone proteins are allowed to load into the well of 20à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  Ãƒ ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ­l of each sample with the help of loading gel tips and while loading, load the sample carefully and slowly without air bubbles and allow the sample to settle down at the bottom of the wells. Taken molecular marker of 2à ¯Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚  Ãƒ ¯Ã‚ Ã‚ ­l and loaded in another well for the identification of the proteins migration. GEL ELECTROPHORESIS : Cover the mini tank with lid properly by using colour code present on the banana plugs. Connect the gel electrophoresis tank to power supply by using 200volts of constant current for about 35-40 minutes until samples runs more than 3/4th of the gel. Stain and de-stain gels: After reaching the sample nearly bottom of the gel turn of the power supply to the gel electrophoresis tank and disconnect the electric leads. Discard the running buffer to avoid splitting and carefully remove the gel sandwich, gently separate the gel from plate by using sharp wedge, separated gel is placed in coomassie blue stain solution of 20-30 ml for 30 minutes on shaker for constant shaking. After the 30 minutes discard the stain solution and wash the gel with distilled water for 4- 5 times for constant time intervals and incubate at room temperature for overnight by placing on shaker. Finally rinse the detained gel with distilled water till the protein bands can clearly visible. Taken the pictures by using camera. RESULTS: By observing the obtained result after running the histone samples H4,H3.3,H2B,H2A in 1D SDS-PAGE . The separation of samples has been seen on the gel by using a dye coomassie blue stain solution. While observing the samples are run on gel according to their molecular mass and get separated from each other. The sample histone protein H4 shows little bit difference in observation which is present near to bottom of the gel ,that shows it run little bit faster than other histone samples due to its smaller size. While observing the other histone samples like H3.3,H2B,H2A they has no lot of difference in separation to differentiate from each other. DISCUSSION: The present experiment explains the isolation of human recombinant protein H4, H3.3, H2B and H2A by using the 1D SDS-PAGE. By observing the obtained result that found the histone protein H4 migrated little bit faster than the other samples .where as other histone samples H3.3, H2B, and H2A are observed ,there is no lot of difference in the migration to differentiate from each other. According to Kornberg, R.D when they performed the experiment on histone protein of human recombinant, found the histone protein H4 migrate faster than other protein and appears to be at 11 kDl . Where H3.3 appears near 15kDl,H2B appears near 14 kDl ,H2A appears near 12 kDl with these result we expect to be the same result but according to the above result that H3.3 ,H2B,H2A does not show much separation in migration of protein sample. So for getting such result may have many reasons that might have not loaded the samples with equal volume or properly loaded in the wells or power supply to the electrophor esis tank is not adjust properly or one sample over float into other wells while loading. The separation of the histone proteins that observed by different authors are histone proteins which undergoes non-acetylase that migrates faster than the protein that undergoes monoacetylation and acetylated derivatives. In this sequence the histone proteins are clearly separated in the core histone protein by using 1D SDS-PAGE. The retarded mobility are shown when the histone protein is highly acetylated compared with non acetylated parent compared. The variants are observed in histone protein due to differing of amino acids in the sequence. Histone proteins undergoes different biological conditions and form to be post synthetically modified like ADP-ribosylated, phosphorylated and acetylated .by using SDS-PAGE the purity of isolated proteins are identified. In the present experiment if the mixture of four histone proteins would need to be separated by the same technique. I would preferably take the three consequent results of same and expected as follows molecular size of H4 has l ess kDl than H2A, H2B and H3.3 in kDl. Few journals and reviews found to be support my hypothesis like Kornberg, R.D(1977) and Herbert and Linder(1992).

Some Things Just Really Make Me Angry :: Education Educational Essays

Some Things Just Really Make Me Angry I was reading Chapter 2, "It's all in the sign!", of Danesi's Messages and Meanings when I ran into a passage that, to put it politely, just really made me angry. Angry because my interpretation of this passage brought back a lot of memories of events that I have had to deal with in my educational "career". There were two sentences, in particular, that really ticked me off. The first was: If a drawing instrument is put in the child's hand, that child will almost instinctively use it to draw--a "skill" that no one has imparted or transmitted to the child. The second was: The child must be exposed to language in order for him or her to acquire it; that same child does not, however, need to be exposed to visual art in order for him or her to draw. These two seemingly innocent statements (that can be found on page 27 and which I have taken out of context) undermine everything that I hold dear. There is a huge assumption in the first sentence that drawing, as a "skill", is innately obtained, especially when "no one has imparted or transmitted to the child". Your naturally talented! Your daughter has so much talent! I wish I had your talent! Your so creative! Well, creative people are like that. I wish I could be as creative as you are! You're the artist of the group/class/school/etc...! Think of something creative/original/new! As I see it, these comments are not compliments of my ability to create visual images but at my "gift", my "talent". Hard work, practice, trial and error, learning the rules, processes, techniques or simple tricks..none of these are examined. The artistic process, to many, remains this mystical and quite godly transformation of something out of nothing and those with this gift of transformation are artistic. What it tells me as a teacher of the arts is this, that I am wasting my time trying to teach everyone, for there are only a talented few (please read the last sentence sarcastically). There is another point of contention that I have with the first statement. What I have taken out of context is the comparison that Danesi makes between language acquisition and drawing skill development. O.K. Danesi states that a child picks up a crayon (drawing instrument) and uses it to scribble naturally and spontaneously, without anyone imparting this knowledge to the child.

Max Weber on Society Essay -- Max Weber sociology sociological Essays

Max Weber on Society Max Weber was one of the world's greatest sociologists and wrote a lot about the capitalist world he lived in. He had a different conception of capitalist society than most of his contemporaries. He looked at capitalism from all the different aspects that the philosophy was made of. Some of these aspects are state power, authority, class inequality, imperialism, and bureaucracy. To understand how Weber thought one must look at each area separately then put them all together in a global package. Weber describes history in terms of the constant struggle for power. He bases all significant historical changes on the power struggle that caused them. Weber describes power as a zero sum game. That means for one person to gain power, someone else has to loose the same amount of power. A fundamental aspect of the power struggle is the state, and its power. Weber states that the state is the monopoly of legitimate force. The state is a compulsory of power, and the laws within it are its powers to enforce its power. The main struggle for power is that of force verses authority. Force is power that can be used to get one's way, and authority is the legitimate use of power to rule. Within the struggle for power, Weber defines three forms of authority: rational-legal authority, traditional authority, and charismatic authority. Rational-legal authority is anchored in impersonal rules that have been legally established. This type of has come to characterize...

Business Requirements Document Essay

Business requirements are the critical activities of an enterprise that must be performed to meet the organizational objective(s). The BRD should remain solution independent. In the context of the project scoping for hardware procurement and installation, this is about identifying and documenting the business requirements of customers, employees, and vendors early in the development cycle to guide the design of the future state. Business requirements are captured by analyzing the current business activities and processes of the as-is state (current process) and defining a target state (to-be process) that will deliver the planned business outcomes that contribute to the organizational objectives. Objectives of the BRD: Stakeholders to gain agreement with stakeholders about what will and will not be delivered Vendors to provide a foundation to communicate to a vendor (or in-house provider) what the solution needs to do to satisfy the customer’s and business’ needs Sponsors to provide input into the business case development phase of the project Customers to describe ‘what’ (not ‘how’) the customer/business needs will be met by the proposed solution Business Requirements Document (BRD) describes the high level requirements that senior management would understand, for example, SS relationship: The BRD is the foundation for all subsequent project deliverables, describing what inputs and outputs are associated with each process function. The BRD describes what the system would look like from a business perspective, distinguishing between the business solution and the technical solution. Business requirements often include: business context, scope, and background, including reasons for change key business stakeholders that have specific requirements success factors for a future/target state constraints imposed by the business processes or other systems business process models and analysis defining either ‘as-is’ and ‘to-be’ business processes glossaries of business terms, local terminology or acronyms Data flow diagrams to illustrate how data flows through the information systems (different from flowcharts depicting algorithmic flow of business activities). A broad cross section of the business should be involved in the development of the BRD. Categories of Business Requirements There are five levels of requirements that are typically captured at different stages of the BRD development. These are: Level 0 business requirements High-level statements of the goals, objectives, or needs of an organization. They usually describe opportunities that an organization wants to be realized or problems that they want to be solved. Level 1 User (Stakeholder) requirements Mid-level statements of the needs of a particular stakeholder or group of stakeholders. They usually describe levels of interaction with the intended solution. Often acting as a mid-point between the high-level business requirements and more detailed solution requirements. Level 2 Functional (solution) requirements Usually detailed statements of the behavior and information that the solution will need. Level 3 Quality-of-service (non-functional) requirements Usually detailed statements of the conditions under which the solution must remain effective, qualities that the solution must have, or constraints within which it must operate. Examples include reliability, testability, maintainability, availability requirements. They are also known as characteristics, constraints or the non-functional requirements, and Level 4 Implementation (transition) requirements Usually detailed statements of capabilities or behavior required to enable transition from the current state to the desired future state. Examples include recruitment, role changes, and migration of data from one system to  another. The success of a BRD is dependent on the agreement of the business to the need for change and the expected business outcome(s). The BRD provides the opportunity to review the project charter to ensure that the objective, goals/outcomes, scope, project team, and approvers are accurately reflected. Prerequisites for BRD Important pre-requisites for a successful BRD are set out below: A current environment assessment. This includes a detailed process map of the current environment highlighting areas that will be affected by the project. The detailed â€Å"as is† process maps should include: clearly defined start and end points of the process; level 1 and level 2 requirements and stakeholder process functions; defined areas of rework and redundant business processes to be removed; cycle time, capacity and rework information for each process step as available, and Baseline for critical metrics for the current environment. Critical quality or performance metrics validated with baseline measurements, targets and specifications. These include: data defining and describing current performance such as how the product/service’s characteristics are to be quantified; specifying the target for the product/service performance and the acceptable tolerances, and The allowable tolerance for service levels, for example how often the product/service is allowed outside the specification limits. The target environment assessment, including critical quality or performance metrics validated with baseline measurements, targets and specifications. These include: data defining and describing the expected performance such as how the product/service’s characteristics are to be quantified; specifying the target for the product/service performance and the acceptable tolerances, and The allowable tolerance for service levels, for example how often the product/service is allowed outside the specification limits. A detailed process map of the target environment. The following figure 4 illustrates a useful way of framing a process flow. Example of a process flow Other BRD considerations The BRD contains a number of project details – such as constraints, assumptions and dependencies, business rules, scope, measurements reporting and other topics critical to the project. The following should be considered in the context of the overall project and, where appropriate, clearly documented. Any external constraints (e.g. regulatory, legal or locational constraints). Constraints and assumptions relating to the complexity of business requirements, interdependence with other systems, timing of events, the scalability of technical options, reporting requirements and any service limits that may apply. Constraints and assumptions relating to the user numbers (staff and customers), users’ existing capability and training required, degree of user support required IT skills availability and location. An example of the difference between a constraint and an assumption is: an assumption could be the number of users that an online service will have: 10,000 logged-on users per day and no more than 5,000 at any given time, and A constraint relating to the number of users may be that the system has a maximum capacity of 20,000 logged-on users at a given time. Reference CONCEPTUALISE ICT projects technical guidance Business case development; The Secretary Department of Treasury and Finance 1 Treasury Place Melbourne Victoria 3002. Copyright  © State of Victoria 2012.