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Case Lab · Meridian Financial Services · Free case

Meridian is bleeding minutes.

Two minutes inside a real case. Read the evidence, make the scope call, watch the requirements document take shape.

THE RUN
  • 05pieces of evidence
  • 01scope decision
  • 01artifact, written in front of you
  • ~2minutes, no signup
Case 1 of 2 · Meridian is free after Module 1
Scroll to start
THE SITUATION · WHERE THINGS STAND

You have been brought in as a Business Analyst at Meridian Financial Services, a mid-size financial advisory firm with 450 employees across 12 regional offices.

ClientHub Pro takes 14.2 seconds on average to return a search. With 350 active advisors, 8,000 estimated duplicate records, and 47 search tickets in the last six months, roughly a third of the advisor team has quietly switched to spreadsheet workarounds.

Sarah Chen · VP of Sales
My advisors keep personal spreadsheets because the search is so bad. That's a data governance nightmare, but I can't blame them.
YOUR ASSIGNMENT · WHAT TO DELIVER

Three artifacts, due in two weeks.

  1. 01Stakeholder Register
  2. 02Requirements Document
  3. 03Use Case

This page builds the second one.

Evidence0 / 5

Five people, five versions of the problem. Read them all before you decide.

  1. Email · Sarah Chen, VP of Sales · March 3, 2026

    We can't search by account number, which is how half our conversations start.

  2. Email · Marcus Wright, CRM Administrator · March 5, 2026

    8,000 duplicate client records were never cleaned up. The vendor's answer is a $45K-a-year Enterprise tier.

  3. Meeting note · Kickoff with Lisa Huang · March 7, 2026

    The timeline expectation is that recommendations should be ready within 2 weeks. She wants requirements that are realistic and implementable, not a "wish list."

  4. Interview · James Petrov, Senior Financial Advisor · March 9, 2026

    I think we need a whole new CRM. I've used Salesforce at my previous firm and it was miles ahead of this.

  5. Data · CRM usage statistics · March 10, 2026

    Average search response time: 14.2 seconds (measured over 1 week). Vendor-quoted cost for Enterprise tier upgrade: $45,000/year.

DECISION · SCOPE

James Petrov wants a full CRM replacement. Sarah Chen wants focused search improvements. Based on the evidence, what scope is appropriate for this project?

Consider the 2-week timeline, the budget sensitivity, and what's realistically achievable.

What the case actually needs.

Translate evidence into requirements. Each one should trace back to a person, not just a problem.

WATCH OUT

A requirement without a source is a guess. Tag each one to the person whose words it answers, and keep the Must column tight enough that Diana can fund it inside the $75K cap.

MENTOR

MoSCoW only works if you respect the M. For this case, two Musts is plenty, three at most. Anything more and Diana will push back on the $75K cap.

ARTIFACT 02 · REQUIREMENTS DOCUMENT
Purpose

Define requirements for improving search functionality and day-to-day usability of the ClientHub Pro CRM at Meridian Financial Services, enabling the project team to create a vendor change request or support a business case for a larger CRM initiative.

Scope

This project covers search performance improvement, search functionality enhancement, and targeted usability improvements within the existing ClientHub Pro platform. Full CRM replacement evaluation and non-search-related features (reporting, mobile app, data entry workflow) are out of scope.

FR-001 · Must Have

System shall return search results within 3 seconds for any query

Source: Sarah Chen, usage data (14.2s current)

Acceptance: Search response time ≤ 3 seconds for 95th percentile of queries measured over 1 week

FR-002 · Must Have

System shall support search by client account number

Source: Sarah Chen, James Petrov

Acceptance: Entering a valid account number returns the matching client record

FR-003 · Must Have

System shall support fuzzy matching for client name searches (partial names, special characters, common misspellings)

Source: Sarah Chen (O'Brien example), James Petrov

Acceptance: Searching "OBrien" returns "O'Brien" records; partial name "Che" returns "Chen"

Clear purpose and scope statementTraceable to stakeholder evidenceAll requirements have acceptance criteriaQuality checklist · 0 / 3

That is artifact two of three.

The Stakeholder Register comes before it, the Use Case after. In the full case you build all three and get feedback scored across five dimensions.

Meridian is free. No card. Module 1 first, then the case opens.

  1. 01Stakeholder Registernext
  2. 02Requirements Documentdone
  3. 03Use Case
SCORED ON
  • Stakeholder Identification
  • Requirements Quality
  • Use Case Structure
  • Analytical Thinking
  • Professional Communication