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 […]
Flashback: This Week in the Past on Tyner Blain [Mar 15]
A look back at the best from this week in the past.
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.
Effective Communication of Requirements
Effective communication of requirements requires more than documentation and broadcasting. Effective communication requires interaction and collaboration. Alistair Cockburn addresses this in his analysis of project successes and modes of communication.
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.
Outside reading: Enterprise versus consumer software
Cote’ recently posted a good comparison of the features of Enterprise Software versus Consumer Software. Although we may not agree with all the items in his lists (consumer software can have a login, and very often does have upgrade paths), we do appreciate the general classification. And we really like his insight:
Top Five Requirements Gathering Tips
Interviewing, Brainstorming, Documenting Use Cases, Prototyping, and Analyzing Documents are our top-five tips. Read more for details
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.