In our earlier article about managing stakeholder goals, we looked at the relationships between principal stakeholder goals and end-user stakeholder goals. We also showed a way to trace those dependencies. But that approach does not provide us with any insight about the alignment (or lack thereof) between differing goals. This […]
Business Analysis / Interaction design / Product Management / Requirements / Software development / UX
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Managing Stakeholder Goals
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
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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
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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 […]
Project Management / Requirements
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Why Your Project Plan Will Fail
You’ve written a project plan. Your team is ready to start. Here’s the bad news – you’re going to fail. But why? How can you avoid failure?
Business Analysis / Business Process Modeling / Business Rules / Product Management / Requirements / Requirements gathering
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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 / Business Rules / Communication / Consulting / Requirements / Writing
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Why Separate Rules from Requirements
Separation of business rules from requirements is a good thing. Not because of semantic distinctions, but because it allows you to write better software, write it faster, and change it more easily. This article is a response to an excellent comment on our recent article about hidden business rules. Thanks […]
Business Analysis / Business Rules / Requirements / Requirements gathering
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10th International Business Rules Forum
The 10th International Business Rules Forum is coming up fast in October 2007. Scott Sehlhorst and James Taylor will be presenting Getting it Right. Rules and Requirements in Software on Thursday at the conference. The articles on rules and requirements that he and I have been publishing on our blogs […]
Business Analysis / Business Rules / Requirements / Requirements gathering / Requirements Models / Use Cases
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Business Rules Hidden in Use Cases
Business rules are not requirements. Yet they are often gathered at the same time as requirements, from the same sources, by the same business analysts. And unfortunately, often documented in the same artifacts. In this article we look at some of the ways that business rules are commonly hidden inside […]