Monthly Archives: July 2009

Valuable Requirements

By Scott Sehlhorst | July 29th, 2009

Writing valuable requirements is important. It doesn’t matter how well your teams execute if they are off building the wrong products / capabilities / features. The right products and capabilities are the ones that have relevant value.

Valuable requirements solve problems in your market.
Valuable requirements support your business strategy.
Valuable requirements solve problems for your users.
Valuable requirements meet your buyers’ criteria.
Valuable requirements don’t over-solve the problems.

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Posted in Ishikawa Diagram, Product Management, Requirements, Requirements Models | Tagged valuable requirements, writing valuable requirements | 14 Comments

ProductCamp Austin Summer 2009

By Scott Sehlhorst | July 23rd, 2009

Austin’s 3rd UnConference for product managers and product marketing managers is coming up on August 15t. If you’re in Austin or can come to Austin, you should definitely plan on participating – it’s free, and a great opportunity to network, share, and learn.

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Posted in Austin TX, Organizations, Product Management, ProductCamp | Tagged product managers, productcamp, productcamp austin, unconference | 3 Comments

Writing Complete User Stories

By Scott Sehlhorst | July 6th, 2009

User stories can make requirements management a lot easier. They shift some of the communication from up-front documentation to ongoing dialog. That’s the main reason they work so well for agile teams. And agile teams focus on “what’s next?” instead of an ever-changing “what’s everything?” The problem is, when those conversations are working well, it is easy to forget to make sure that what you’ve done is actually enough. Add a small dose of traceability, and you can easily validate the completeness of your user stories.