Category Archives: Communication

Articles that focus on communication, including suggestions on how to target communication or make it more clear. Communication can be written, verbal, in presentations, or other forms.

Use Case Driven Documentation

By Scott Sehlhorst | October 10th, 2006

Yesterday we wrote about focusing our documentation on what our users are trying to accomplish. With a structured requirements approach, or with an interaction-design driven approach, we’ve already solved half the problem – determining what to document.

Goal-Driven Documentation

By Scott Sehlhorst | October 9th, 2006

Why do we write documentation? Because someone told us to write it? Because our competitors have it? Or because we want our software to be easier to use? It should be the third one, but often, writing documentation is an afterthought, and it is deprioritized, and we just get it done, instead of thinking about the goals for doing it in the first place and doing it right.

Posted in Product Management, Software development, Writing | Tagged competent users, goal-driven doc, goal-driven documentation, managing data, raising the suck threshold, software doc, software documentation, suck threshold, writing doc, writing software doc, writing software documentation | 3 Comments

Building the Case for Requirements Management Tools

By Scott Sehlhorst | August 29th, 2006

Marcus Ting-A-Kee has assembled a great presentation on the value to his company of requirements management tools. In addition to creating the presentation and sharing it with all of us, he shares the process of creating the presentation in several articles.

Posted in Consulting, Presentation, Requirements management software | Tagged managing data, requirements management software presentation | Leave a comment

Communicating A Release Schedule With Use Cases

By Scott Sehlhorst | July 19th, 2006

topsyWidgetPreload({ “url”: “http%3A%2F%2Ftynerblain.com%2Fblog%2F2006%2F07%2F19%2Fcommunicating-a-release-schedule-with-use-cases%2F”, “style”: “big”, “title”: “Communicating A Release Schedule With Use Cases” }); We manage release schedules with project management. We manage customer expectations with consulting skills. How do we manage customer expectations about release schedules? With Use Cases. Background We started a series of posts exploring why we apply use cases as part [...]

Posted in Communication, Consulting, Product Management, Project Management, Requirements, Requirements Models, Use Cases | Tagged communicating schedules, customer communication, delivery schedule, managing data, software delivery, use case analysis, use case communication, use cases | 2 Comments

Communicating Intent With Implementers

By Scott Sehlhorst | July 17th, 2006

Giving a functional spec to developers and testers is not sufficient for creating great software. To a developer, a spec is only the what and not the why. And for a tester, the software requirements specification is neither. Use cases provide the why that explains the intent of the system for the implementation team.

Posted in Communication, Product Management, Requirements, Requirements Models, Software requirements specification, Use Cases | Tagged communicating intent, managing data, MRD, quality assurance, software development process, status report, status reporting, use cases | Leave a comment

Communicating Intent With Stakeholders

By Scott Sehlhorst | July 14th, 2006

We can build a prototype of what the stakeholders don’t want, and then get feedback and fix it. Or we can review use cases of what we intend to build, confirm that each stakeholder wants it, and build it right the first time.

Posted in Communication, Product Management, Requirements, Requirements Models, Use Cases | Tagged communicating intent, managing data, stakeholder communication, use cases | Leave a comment

Outside Reading: Top 10 Signs You Should Not Write Requirements

By Scott Sehlhorst | July 11th, 2006

Seilevel has a post that presents the top 10 signs that you should not pursue a career writing requirements, check it out. Thanks Joy for the great article!

Posted in Lists, Requirements, Writing | Tagged managing data, requirement discovery, Requirements gathering, writing requirements | Leave a comment

Make Your Meetings 60% More Effective

By Scott Sehlhorst | July 5th, 2006

While effective meetings may not be the key to success, ineffective meetings are inarguably one of the largest time wasters in corporations. Applying these tips before, during, and after meetings will make us much more effective.

Posted in Communication, Consulting, Project Management | Tagged effective meetings, managing data, meetings, more effective meetings, Prioritization, requirements validation, use cases | 9 Comments

Extra Features Cause $245,000 Loss

By Scott Sehlhorst | June 29th, 2006

Robin Lowry has posted a story of a demo gone horribly wrong at The Product Management View. In the story, users end up confused by the myriad of features of the software – resulting in a $5,000 sale instead of a $250,000 sale.

Posted in Presentation, Product Management | Tagged demo, featuritis, lost sales, managing data, suck threshold | Leave a comment

Foundation Series: How To Read a Formal Use Case

By Scott Sehlhorst | June 26th, 2006

Use cases represent the activities that people do when interacting with a system to achieve their goals. Use cases are a very effective tool for communicating and documenting what a system is intended to accomplish. Formal use cases are use cases that use a specific structure to represent the information. Knowing how to read a formal use case is important.