eNewsletter Archives
[Success with Requirements] Savvy Shopping for COTS Software, Upcoming Webinar, and other Resources
How do you tackle requirements for off-the-shelf (COTS) software? How do you make smart choices to ensure a good fit? What questions should your ask? How should you represent the requirements? ... This month, requirements guru and EBG Consulting Sr. Associate Mary Gorman shares good practices to use when shopping for COTS solutions. Read on....
Published on September 30, 2008
[Success with Requirements] New Media Page; Upcoming Webinar, and other Resources
This month I will share newly available resources with you, including a fast approaching webinar (on August 26th) and a list of events we hope to see you at later this year.
Published on August 19, 2008
[Success with Requirements] Podcast on Requirements Topics; New Contact Info; and other Resources
Summer is here for those of us in the northern hemisphere. We hope you are taking well-deserved time off!...This month I would like to share a two-part podcast I recently recorded with requirements.net. I hope you'll find the podcasts interesting listening. Read on....
Published on July 22, 2008
How does your team make decisions? Do you discuss what decisions need to be made? Do you know how you'll arrive at your decision? Requirements work involves making decisions throughout your project. For example, decisions on scope, what will be released and when, who your users will be, what rules you will enforce, how quality attributes will be delivered, and many more! Read on...
Published on June 19, 2008
When was the last time you visited your users to learn what they go through to get their work done? This can lead to a profound understanding of requirements, provide context for your analysis, and build rapport. Consider the combination of techniques you use to elicit requirements....Read on!
Published on April 29, 2008
The bedrock of any great team is trust. Yet, trust is something that doesn’t happen automatically. It needs to be built early on in any project and requires continual care and feeding. I have found that good requirements practices, applied from the start of any project, enable trust. In this month’s eNewsletter, I share characteristics of trust and how good practices will help you build and sustain trust in your teams. Read on...
Published on March 27, 2008
A seldom discussed and often overlooked requirements topic is interface requirements. Ignoring or delaying understanding these requirements can imperil your efforts. In this issue, I'm pleased to share this incisive article by Mary Gorman, our Senior Associate. Mary explains why and how you should invest in analyzing your interfaces requirements. I hope you'll find it useful. Read on...
Published on February 21, 2008
Perhaps you are on an agile team, or will soon (or hope to) transition to agile practices. How do you "do" agile requirements when your product is large and complex? Can you strike a balance between gaining upfront understanding of product requirements while honoring the agile imperatives for delivering buisness value and iterative development? Read more...
Published on January 30, 2008
[Success with Requirements] Podcast: Adapting Your Requirements Practices; and other Resources
This month's eNewsletter features a recent podcast on adapting your requirements practices. This podcast was recorded by StickyMinds as a follow-up to my two-part article on adapting requirements. In this podcast, I explore project factors to consider and requirements elements to adapt depending on your particular project situation. The goal is to do the right things for your project. Read on...
Published on December 20, 2007
Not all requirements are created equal. All teams - and product development efforts - need clear, inclusive and justifiable ways to make smart choices about the myriad of changing requirements. In this article, I explore some essential practices around prioritization that I hope you will find useful. Read on...
Published on November 27, 2007
This newsletter's article addresses the topic of requirements documentation. How useful is yours? Do you produce dense and voluminous requirements documentation that doesn't provide business value? How much is too much - or too little? What questions can you ask yourself to make good choices about requirements documentation? I'll explore how you can leverage the YAGNI principle from eXtreme Programming (XP) for making good choices about your requirements documentation. Read on!
Published on October 25, 2007
In this issue I address these questions: Do agile projects abandon requirements? Some think so. How do successful agile teams manage requirements? Read on as I share my observations from working with agile teams. Read on...
Published on September 27, 2007
Got creep? Scope creep, that is! It's estimated that 80% of projects suffer scope creep. I hope you'll take a moment to read some thoughts in this issue on effective ways to handle this risk! Read on...
Published on August 31, 2007
I hope you have a few moments in your busy day to slow down and read my article, Slow Down to Speed Up. ;-) Read on...
Published on June 26, 2007
On Sesame Street children are given a set of items and be challenged to find out what doesn't belong. For example, one group might be: table, chair, bed, door, baby. A correct answer means the child can differentiate between classes of objects. A lot of our work as analysts involves figuring out what doesn't belong: you've got to untangle a complex hairball of business and technical issues, navigate competing stakeholder needs, tolerate organizational and team politics, consider competitive concerns and market needs, manage schedule pressures, and more. To straighten all this out, you need to separate out all the issues while exploring their interconnections. Read on...
Published on May 30, 2007
[Success with Requirements] April Issue: Collaboration Conundrum; Free Webinar and other Resources
You know facilitated workshops are an effective way to elicit requirements. But getting business customers to invest the time to attend multiple workshops lasting hours or even days is a major challenge. What are some time-tested techniques to get business folks genuinely commit to the process? Read on...
Published on April 29, 2007
1. Successful projects depend on excellent requirements. 2. Getting excellent requirements in optimal time requires honest collaboration. 3. Both sides of the business-IT relationship have information that's critically relevant to an excellent set of requirements. 4. Successful projects require early, genuine, and continual collaboration between business and IT. Common sense, right? Any experienced business analyst (BA) and project manager (PM) will tell you its not always common practice. I'd like to share a few business-IT collaboration tactics that have saved my clients money and frustration: Read on...
Published on March 21, 2007