In my time at ArgonDigital, I’ve had a chance to work with a number of different clients, operating in a range of industries. Oftentimes, these clients begin projects with a number of legacy systems that need updated or integrated with; it is a rare opportunity for a project team to get to create a solution […]
Tag: requirements modeling
The Most Important Part of A User Story
The last couple of years has seen a wholesale shift in development methodologies among the Fortune 1000 companies from Waterfall to Agile. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Agile revolution that has been brewing in small companies, startups and web companies for the last decade and a half has finally arrived in […]
“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 […]
RML Model: User Interface Flow
I recently needed to show how the pages of a log-in process interacted. I started writing a process flow, then switched to a system flow, but in both cases was fighting the model—I wanted to show both what the user was doing and the system decisions. I also wanted to make it clear which pages […]
What Models Should be Used to Create Requirements in an Agile Project?
This is a question that came up repeatedly in the classes I have taught these past few months. My answer is always the same: “Any and all models that are needed to define the problem space and derive the requirements.” The reaction to this is almost always identical: “But I thought we ONLY needed to create […]
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 […]
Business Analyst Tip: Visualizing Your Completed Document Using Fillers
Whenever I’m in the beginning stages of working on a lengthy requirements document I like to get an idea of how the document will actually look at the end. A lot of the time this helps me put the pieces together in my head to help me figure out how to format my document, or […]
Gesture Mapping for Mobile Interfaces
Look around you. Many of the tasks we once relied on a desktop or laptop to perform are now done on our phones and tablets. While that’s great news for our airplane carry-ons, it isn’t necessarily the best news in terms of usability. Anyone who has attempted to view or edit a spread sheet on […]
Modeling Tip: Business Objectives Model or Key Performance Indicator Model?
Here at ArgonDigital, when we begin a new project, we typically start off by asking a fundamental question, “Why is this project valuable to our client?” Establishing a “Why” guides the effort, allowing us to understand which areas of the project offer the greatest monetary return. To do this, we create the Business Objectives Model, […]
Bringing Creativity to Business Analysis
Being a business analyst, I think it is fair to say, is not the most creative profession out there. We do have opportunities to write clear requirements, create interesting PowerPoint presentations from time to time, and choose an ingenious font color scheme to make status reports exciting and readable. But most of our time is […]
Software Requirements: The Case for Visual Models
At ArgonDigital, when we talk about software requirements we talk a lot about visual models, going into detail about specific models, how to use visual models, and the mechanics of the particular model. But I thought I would take a step back and talk about why we use visual models at all. When most people think […]
Business Objectives in Requirements Engineering
I have recently started working on a new project, and we recently held our kick off meeting for the effort. One of the standard items to review is the project summary, which is usually a couple of short statements on what the project is all about. Since I was aware that most of the subject […]