“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” – Beverly Sills It should come as no surprise that if you change your requirements after you deploy, it costs A LOT more. Here’s a fun (read scary) fact: 65% of features stakeholders define for a product are rarely, if ever, used. It does not […]
Tag: software requirements gathering
First, break all the requirements
What? In 1999, Buckingham and Coffman authored First, Break All the Rules. They used Gallop data from manager interviews to identify how good managers drive employee satisfaction. Internally at ArgonDigital, we use the methodology described in the book for gauging employee satisfaction. People who join us are sometimes surprised by our survey. We ask a number of […]
Perfectionism—Use it Like a Tool
On an episode of Well Read, Elizabeth Gilbert makes the interesting case that perfectionism is really fear (starting at 6 minutes, 58 seconds). She also addresses this in her blog post about avoiding the perfectionism trap, where she states “…I think perfectionism is just a high-end, haute couture version of fear.” When I heard her […]
Customer Onboarding: The Solution to User Engagement Crisis
Reading the NYT review of the new Apple Watch, I’m reminded of what it was like to first use an iPhone. Having cracked all the shrink-wrap and pulled apart each of the black and white paper boxes that include instructions no human would ever read, and there it was, a shiny, all-black obelisk. Like the […]
Geeks with Empathy – The Key Traits a Business Analyst Must Possess
I recently participated in a Panel Discussion on the state of the Business Analyst Profession held by IIBA of Austin. One of the questions we tackled was the following: “What are the key traits that a Business Analyst must possess?” There are many qualifications and abilities that a good analyst must possess. The ability to […]
Long Distance Agile – How Good Requirements Documentation Overcomes the Problems of Distance and Disconnected Agile Teams
In the last three months or so, I have been approached by a number of analysts and developers struggling with the problems of working on geographically dispersed Agile teams. In a majority of the situations, the team members are scattered in countries on different sides of the globe with a minimum of 6 hours or […]
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 […]
Telling a Story Through Your Requirements, Part II
In my previous post, I talked about how business analysts and product managers who are putting together requirements documentation can and should think of themselves as storytellers. By thinking of a Business Requirements Document (BRD) or a System Requirements Specification (SRS) as a narrative, with a beginning, middle and end, we can tell a story […]
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 […]
Shakespeare Would Suck at Gathering Requirements
In William Shakespeare’s famous play, Romeo and Juliet, Juliet tells her sweet Romeo: “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet” Short answer in the requirements world: No. If you have ever been tasked with writing software requirements, you may be forced to disagree with our […]
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, […]
Requirements Gathering: New Information Management DMRadio Podcast Featuring Joy Beatty
Joy Beatty, ArgonDigital’s VP of Research, will be participating in an Information Management panel discussion on requirements delivered live tomorrow, February 9, 2012. Learn more about the panel and register here: https://bit.ly/zCznao The hour-long interview and discussion is hosted on DM Radio by Eric Kavanagh, CEO at The Bloor Group, and Jim Ericson, editorial director […]