Skip to main content

Pain in the ass people (?)


We all know that many software projects don't end up well because in the beginning phase it is not clear what will really be useful, yet there are always more job postings for Technical Analyst or Architect than for "Requirements Seekers".
Perhaps many believe that intelligent and experienced people in their field can also explain well all they need from a software application.

I don't think so, and I believe this is a very specific job.
I think we need more Socrates-like people, that is,  meticulous and sometimes "pain in the ass" persons that can really "extract"  everything they can out of those users who express their (often complicated) business needs.

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.

3. Simple, Complicated, Complex... Chaos !

A few words about the different kind of systems, just so you know in which kind of trouble you are when you start gathering requirements :-) SIMPLE What it is: you can see clearly all the connections between cause and effect . How to handle it: it is usually easy. COMPLICATED What it is: there are cause - effect connections, but it's not easy to see them. There is never a unique solution. How to handle it: ask questions to the experts (if there is any). COMPLEX What it is: it is made of many pieces, and they are highly interconnected. The output is usually part of the system itself and influences it, so it's difficult even to ask yourself the right questions. How to handle it: test some small parts and see what it happens (someone calls it "dance with the system.") CHAOS What it is:  high uncertainty, no apparent cause and effect and ... when some rule seem to apply, it will probably change very rapidly. How to handle it: run away !