Skip to main content

Crash course

Weeks ago I attended a course about requirements at a clients' premises, and spoke briefly as a "special guest" about my experiences in requirements gathering.
The audience was all senior people, from 10 to 30 years experience.

Which were my four cents ?

1. Be careful of the usual three pillars of chaos form the users: wrong facts, omissions and inconsistency,

2. Ask three times Why ? why ? and why ? (the first answer is never the right one),

3. The system needs 100, the users tells you he wants 90, you understand 80, you write 70 and the developer starts working on the 60 he understands,
4. There are things you do know and things you THINK you know but you don't, so
be respectful of the "monkey" user, he always know the business better than you. Be humble.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Crash course - 2

Why ? The more I think about it, the more "why" is the word when it comes to requirements gathering. The question "Why ?" has two different meanings: THE PAST : you ask questions to understand the cause, what has happened in the past. THE FUTURE : we ask questions to understand what the user will need in the future, what he wants to do.

"Volere" Requirements process

I found in my library the "Mastering the Requirements Process" book , that some might know as the " Volere " book. After many years I still find it very useful. I don't think the good Robertsons invented anything really new, but I do believe that this book covers 90% of the "how to" solve requirements problems in software development.  And 90% is a lot ! The parts I appreciated more, this last time are: Chapter 12. Prototyping the Requirements  Working together to the prototype, can really take out the users' implicit knowledge, correct lapses and help in many other ways. Chapter 11. The Quality Gateway You could try put an analyst that doesn't work on the same project, to read the project's requirements and have him refuse: all incomplete or inconsistent entries, frills, etc. I think it can be a very powerful practice.