iconuk - requirements gathering "...or the secret art of mind reading"

Requirements gathering

The secret art of mind reading

or

Femke GoedhartBusiness Consultant & Partner

Tim ClarkCEO & Project Manager

Requirements gathering steps

• Scope

• Gather

• Analyze

• Conceptualize

• Check & Balance

• Deliver

Requirements gathering steps

• Scope

• Gather

• Analyze

• Conceptualize

• Check & Balance

• Deliver

Scope

Confessions

“I worked on a fixed time project, where they spent so much time gathering the requirements there was very little time left to actually write the code.

It was a horrible experience.”

http://geekandpoke.typepad.com/geekandpoke/2012/01/quiz-of-the-week.html

Confessions

“I was part of a project where they ‘gathered as they go’ it was like little red riding hood skipping through the forrest hoping not to bump into the wolf.It made me shudder”

Hofstadters law...

“It always takes longer than you expect,

even when you take Hofstadters law into

account...”

Technical vs Functional

Requirements gathering steps

• Scope

• Gather

• Analyze

• Conceptualize

• Check & Balance

• Deliver

Who?

• Interviews

• Focus groups

• Observation

• Documentation studies

• RFP Documents

• Workshops

• Questionnaires

• ....

TALK����������� ������������������  !=LISTENING

Your����������� ������������������  perspective����������� ������������������  is����������� ������������������  limited����������� ������������������  by����������� ������������������  how����������� ������������������  much����������� ������������������  you����������� ������������������  know����������� ������������������  -����������� ������������������  unless����������� ������������������  you����������� ������������������  accept����������� ������������������  that����������� ������������������  you����������� ������������������  don’t����������� ������������������  know����������� ������������������  

everything

Requirements gathering steps

• Scope

• Gather

• Analyze

• Conceptualize

• Check & Balance

• Deliver

Urgent Not-Urgent

Important 1 2

Not-Important 3 4

Feasibility study

Make it SMART!

Requirements gathering steps

• Scope

• Gather

• Analyze

• Conceptualize

• Check & Balance

• Deliver

Draw it out

Methodologies

• Rational Unified Process (RUP)

• Joint Requirements Planning (JRP)Joint Application Design (JAD)

• Use case

• Unified Modeling Language (UML)

Requirements gathering steps

• Scope

• Gather

• Analyze

• Conceptualize

• Check & Balance

• Deliver

“Play it back”

4-Eyes principle

Never assume...

Confessions

“I had an experience with getting all the requirements together and after we build it, they were very surprised about the result. Because it reflected how inefficient they did their work.”

“Be comfortable with (some) ambiguity”

Requirements gathering steps

• Scope

• Gather

• Analyze

• Conceptualize

• Check & Balance

• Deliver

Deliver the Blueprints

“The stupidest things I’ve ever encountered in a requirements phase or document?”

PEOPLE!

Requirements gathering steps

• Scope

• Gather

• Analyze

• Conceptualize

• Check & Balance

• Deliver

Questions Contacts

• Tim Clark

• info@tc-soft.com

• +44 7715 208594

• www.tc-soft.com

• @TimsterC

• Femke Goedhart

• f.goedhart@silverside.nl

• +31 6 51677188

• www.silverside.nl

• @femkegoedhart