I recently had the opportunity to work with a company that had a long sales and construction process. In their industry it generally took three months to complete the process, but with this company they knew it was taking much longer. They were challenged to even measure what their cycle time was with any degree […]
Tag: requirement models
User Stories and Technical Stories in Agile Development
A common problem that I have seen Agile teams grapple with is writing user stories and acceptance criteria for projects that are heavy on technical implementation and modifications with no substantive change in the user interfaces or workflows. This kind of scenario is very common in companies that are upgrading infrastructure or changing underlying design […]
Requirement Models for System Replacement Projects
We recently received an “Ask Joy” question around what models can be helpful for a system replacement project. Below is our answer, slightly modified to give proper context for all. System replacement projects can be a challenge, since many times the systems being replaced are old and obsolete from a technology perspective, but our business […]
“Just Enough Documentation” for Agile Projects
Companies that make the switch from Waterfall methodologies to Agile struggle with requirements documentation. How much documentation do we need? What kind? When should this documentation be created? Who is creating this documentation? Our experience shows that companies have swung the pendulum too far in terms of both the quantity and quality of documentation when […]
Sticking to our Guns
I’ve been working on a program that has certain been a challenge, both from the subject matter, the extremely short timeframes given (imposed governmental regulations that must be met), to the stakeholders (who have day jobs to perform as well). Everyone is under pressure, which can make for some short fuses as well as poor […]
Business Analyst Tip: ArgonDigital Approach Works
I still remember my first project at ArgonDigital, more than 9 years ago. I struggled with the information flood and came out of that project with at least one clear goal: to get better at acquiring new information. In October, I started on a new project with a new client in an industry new to […]
Defining Proper Success Metrics on Business Objectives Models
The Business Objective Model (BOM) is one of the foundational models we use as part of the ArgonDigital requirements methodology. The BOM defines the rationale for doing a project. Every BOM has the following key component parts. 1. Problems – the business problems to be solved or addressed 2. Objectives – the targeted objectives or […]
Business Analysts need to ask “Why”?
I attended BA World – Atlanta a few weeks back, and attended a wonderful presentation by Paul Mulvey, “Why Should a Business Analyst Care About Essential Processes?” Paul started off his session with a story about his daughter, and how she asked for a new iPhone. His first question was “why?” Why did she need […]
Arsonists in a Field of Straw Men: Elicitation from a Blank Slate
On a recent project, I was sitting in a room full of subject matter experts (SMEs), trying to document a business process using the trusty Process Flow model, when trouble struck. Before the meeting, the team was “lucky” enough to discover process flows for the very process we were focusing on; the only issue was […]
When Features Attack!
As the saying goes, “necessity is the mother of invention”, ArgonDigital’s 10+ year mission to “redefine the way software requirements are created,” was no accident either. While vague, incomplete or incorrect requirements are issues we face every day, the more vexing, expensive, and ever-expanding problem we face is how to battle unnecessary features. It’s surprisingly […]
Cart before the Horse? Retrofitting Models to Requirements
Because incomplete requirements have led to many a failed IT project, it has become an article of faith around the halls of ArgonDigital that visual models must be created before any requirements statements can be drafted. But what happens when you inherit requirements as part of a past project, or in collaboration with another dependent […]
Delivering Success When Replacing a Software System – adapted from Software Requirements, 3rd Edition
Many IT projects today are replacement system projects instead of new software development. A replacement project replaces an existing software system with a new custom-built system, a commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) system, or a hybrid of those. The challenges that most replacement projects share include: stuffing in unnecessary functionality, degrading the organization’s operational performance, users refusing […]