The Business Data Diagram is a powerful, high-level RML model that can help bound the scope of data for your project. It can also be used to visually convey a sophisticated strategy for bounding your requirements objects and their traceability. I was recently working on a project where we had huge sets of requirements data […]
Tag: requirements traceability
SmartOffice for TFS will radically boost your productivity
I recently downloaded SmartOffice for TFS, a plugin for the Microsoft Office suite produced by Modern Requirements. This tool integrates Excel, Outlook, Word and Visio into Team Foundation Server (TFS), and will instantly simplify some of the more tedious tasks required for good requirements maintenance. Below, I have quickly highlighted some time-saving features of the […]
Going Agile: The Anatomy of a User Story
User stories, a requirements format utilized in Agile software development, are typically formatted with the following template: As a (type of user), I want (some goal), so that (some reason). This template can be modified to suit a project’s need. In this post, we’ll show how user stories themselves can be broken down into tables […]
Requirements Tools: Excel (1 of Many)
Last time, I went over a Sharepoint feature that’s saved me a lot of time and effort. At ArgonDigital,, as much as we use Sharepoint, we use Excel even more. Not as much for calculations, but for storing and sorting requirements and associated data, such as features. When we do this, the usual pros and […]
Adding Dimensions to your Models: Nuanced Communication for Business Analysts
When it comes to requirements “communication” is the name of the game. An analyst could crank out top-notch technical documents or business cases, but if their intended audience isn’t able to consume it then ultimately the work was for naught. It’s to this end that we use things like visual models to help get the […]
A Poor Man’s Requirements Traceability
I do a lot of what could be considered firefighting on my current project. I’m often given tasks with very short deadlines. Tasks that would normally require days to complete need to be performed in a matter of hours. One of these tasks was to perform an “audit” of the requirements for the project (I […]
Don’t do Requirements Traceability
Number 7 in the series, “How to Shoot Yourself in the Foot: 7 ways to do software requirements poorly to set your project up for failure and what to do instead.” Short-change Time Spent on Software Requirements or Don’t do Them at All Don’t Listen to Your Customer’s Needs Don’t use Models Use Weasel Words […]
Don’t Baseline and Change Control Requirements
Number 6 in the series, “How to Shoot Yourself in the Foot: 7 ways to do software requirements poorly to set your project up for failure and what to do instead.” Short-change Time Spent on Software Requirements or Don’t do Them at All Don’t Listen to Your Customer’s Needs Don’t use Models Use Weasel Words […]
Requirements Traceability
Traceability defined I first was introduced to traceability years ago by Karl Wiegers in Software Requirements (First Edition) and was immediately sold on the impact it brings to a project. As important as it is, I noticed that few projects actually did it. I’m in a position now where I do apply it, and I […]