Requirements at the Speed of ThoughtWhat Questions Do You Have About Requirements?We get a lot of questions about requirements management and elicitation in our forum and on our blog. So, in an effort to provide you with more practical information, we've added "Ask Joy." In each newsletter, we'll feature a new question from our Requirements Defined reader. Send your requirements questions to us, and Joy Beatty, our VP of Blue Ocean Strategy, will answer it in her next blog post. Six Requirements Models To Use On Agile ProjectsQ: What requirements models do you use on agile projects? J: When working on any agile project, most people will agree there is still a need to understand requirements. With the quick iterations of these projects, it’s more important than ever, to use visual models to capture the requirements. When done correctly, easier and quicker to create and understand than a list of written requirements. Selecting the appropriate models will vary by project; however, we can suggest a few common choices that work well. High Level ModelsAt the beginning of the project, it is important to get a quick picture of the breadth of the project. This picture will help the team determine where to dive for depth. It is really important that these models are done as broad strokes, with just the bare minimum information. To get a sketch of that big picture, consider these models:
Imagine one of your iterations requires bringing in new users to the team. These four models will give them an opportunity to quickly see the big picture of what this project is and where it is going, without having to read a 200 page spec (since there isn’t one!). You can also use them with your users to prioritize the most important pieces of the system for the iterations. Models in the IterationsOnce you have prioritized the work for the first iteration, the two most popular models are likely to be:
There will be other models. Sometimes you won’t even use these. The common theme in all of them is to create a visual representation of the requirements because it is faster to create and read. And with them all, to only do the bare minimum necessary. Blog HitsFour Ways To Improve Your Agile Requirements Management ProcessBy James Hulgan One of the challenges of Agile projects is ensuring that the requirements remain “Agile”. While requirements are not necessarily neglected on Agile projects, an Agile project may erroneously take a waterfall approach to requirements. Here are some simple techniques to adapt your requirements management effort to an agile project. The quotes at the beginning of each section are from the “Principles Behind the Agile Manifesto” at http://agilemanifesto.org . 1. Communicate Often and Efficiently “The most efficient and effective method of Two problems with email is that it is inefficient and easy to ignore. Email thread discussions can be long, tedious, and annoying. Despite the advances in emoticons over the past several years, it is also impossible to interpret non-verbal communication in email. Resolutions to discussions around requirements, scope, and implementation will be resolved much quicker and to the satisfaction of more stakeholders through a meeting or hallway conversation. If moderating a large number of email discussions is part of your current requirements process (for example, after the initial draft of the requirements doc is published), perhaps it’s time to schedule regular meetings at key points during the release cycle. (Read about the other three tips...) |
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