We’re dedicating our “blogging time” this week to doing some infrastructure upgrades – we have to address some security issues on the site. Until we get through these changes, we’ll be recycling some of our existing content. For our recent readers, it will be “new to you” and for our […]
Ten Supercharged Active Listening Skills To Make You More Successful
Active listening is about more than gaining understanding. Active listening is about giving. Giving assurance that you understand someone’s needs. Giving confidence that you will address those needs. Giving feedback and acknowledgement that someone’s input is valuable. If you haven’t tried active listening, you may think it is a passive, receptive activity. Active listening skills will help you guide your customers and your team to do the right thing, and enjoy the experience.
6 Tips To Double Your Requirements Interview Effectiveness
Being effective at interviewing is key to gathering requirements effectively. We suggest six tips to make the interviewing process more effective and efficient.
Top Five Ways To Be A Better Listener
Effective listening skills yield great requirements The better you are at listening, the more people will want to tell you. If you’ve ever watched The Actor’s Studio, you’ve heard over and over that the most important skill in acting is reflective listening. A marriage counselor will tell you that step […]
How To Interview When Gathering Requirements
We previously stressed the importance of understanding why something is a requirement. Unfortunately, we can’t just ask “why why why?!” until we reach the end of the chain. This won’t be any more effective for us now than it was when we were in kindergarden. Eventually, our listeners will get frustrated, or worse, defensive.
Active Listening and Cultural Cues – When No Means Yes
Without good communication skills, you won’t understand what the stakeholders want. And you won’t structure and describe the requirements in a way that the developers will implement what you intend.
For a given project, there are three sets of requirements – the requirements you are given, the requirements you document, and the requirements that are interpreted by the delivery team.