A couple weeks ago we wrote about Outside-in Software Development, by Carl Kessler and John Sweitzer. One of their ideas about stakeholders and goals has got us thinking about traceability.
Marketing / Prioritization / Product Management / Requirements
Posted on:
Fast Follower Product Strategy: Microsoft Zune
Microsoft has a product called Zune that is a competitor to the Apple iPod. They just recently announced their second release – the new version of the Zune. Since Apple already dominates that market, Microsoft qualifies as a follower – how are they approaching the introduction of a new product […]
Business Analysis / Business Process Modeling / Business Rules / Product Management / Requirements / Requirements Models / Use Cases
Posted on:
Global Processes and Business Rules
We’ve written before about the importance of separating rules from requirements, particularly in use cases. We wrote that with the goal in mind of reducing the costs of system maintenance. Low-level rules like decision, calculation and inference rules tend to change frequently – and independently of other requirements. So a […]
Business Analysis / Business Process Modeling / Business Rules / Product Management / Requirements / Requirements gathering
Posted on:
Elicitation Techniques for Processes, Rules, and Requirements
Each elicitation technique we have in our toolbox is a tool. But not every elicitation job is the same. If we have a hammer, we might be working with nails, or screws, or even an egg. In our analysis, we have to develop a deep understanding of our customer’s business(es). […]
Business Analysis / Product Management / Requirements / Requirements gathering / Requirements Models
Posted on:
Analysis Paralysis and Agile Development
How do you prevent analysis paralysis? That’s the question Barbara opens up for discussion on the Business Analyst Blog. The answer is somewhat simple. You stop as soon as you believe you have something that reasonably covers the goals (or use cases) that you are trying to address. When you […]
Agile / Business Analysis / Product Management / Requirements / Requirements gathering / Requirements Models / Software development / Software requirements specification / Use Cases
Posted on:
Requirements Details – How Much is Enough?
What is the right level of detail for writing requirements? What about for writing specifications (functional, non-functional requirements, etc)? The answer is that there is no one answer. But there are guidelines, and reasons to write more detail, or less detail – for any given product or project, and any […]
Business Analysis / Process Flow / Process Improvement / Product Management / Software development
Posted on:
Product Managers and Information Flow
Product managers are often described as the hub or center of a software development organization. Saeed Khan takes umbrage with this under-appreciative image in an awesome article about information flow, product managers, and the SDLC.
Business Analysis / Expert systems / Prioritization / Product Management / Project Management / Requirements / Requirements Models / ROI / Use Cases
Posted on:
Prioritization and Value Maximization
We all know the story about the emperor’s new clothes. I’ve been thinking about prioritization and scheduling, and as far as I know, no one is promoting that we maximize value – they (and we) have been promoting that we do the most valuable stuff first. Doing the most valuable […]
Business Analysis / Product Management / Requirements / Requirements Models / Use Cases
Posted on:
Elastic Users, Actors, and Roles
In About Face 2.0, Alan Cooper describes the elastic user as an ill-defined user who’s characteristics change to suit the needs of the developer – sometimes an expert and sometimes a novice. However, some of the otherwise good techniques for managing actors and use cases exacerbate this problem instead of […]