Communication / Requirements / Writing

Secret decoder ring

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I’m having a little trouble reading the spec – I left my secret decoder ring at home! Ever hear that before? A set of requirements that makes perfect sense to one team member can be completely unintelligible to others. Requirements written in business-speak, or full of accounting jargon may be […]

Communication / Requirements

Everything I Needed To Know I Forgot in Kindergarden

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“WHY?” is the central theme, the underlying cause, and the most important element to developing a successful product. And it plays an important role in documenting requirements. Without knowing why a product is valuable or why people will use it, or why it needs to be done in 3 months instead of 6, you aren’t likely to make the right decisions about what to include, when to include it, or how to market it.

Communication / Writing

Improve your writing with graphics!

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I attended training on making compelling presentations last year – and one thing that was stressed was the use of imagery to drive points home. Although there have been images in my posts to date, they have been utilitarian – not sources of imagery. I need to do better with […]

Communication / Presentation / Requirements / Requirements gathering

Active Listening and Cultural Cues – When No Means Yes

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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.

Requirements

Spec writer wanted

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Tom Chi, has a new article at OK/Cancel about the needs and challenges of having a detailed functional spec. He throws open the floor for folks to comment on what works for them. As a long time reader of OK/Cancel, I can tell you that they will get a bunch […]