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 […]
Communication / Requirements / Requirements gathering / Writing
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A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Requirements
Object oriented analysis and design (OOA/OOD) is a technique used to gather requirements and develop software, as an alternative to more traditional text-based techniques.
OOA allows for clarity of communication, by creating descriptive and unambiguous documentation of requirements. It comes with a great big giant caveat –
Communication / Consulting / Presentation
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It’s not business, it’s just personal
Having the best powerpoint presentation (thanks to Presentation Zen and Beyond Bullets, this is possible) is not sufficient to persuade. We have to craft personal messages. We have to be interactive, and adapt our presentations as we present – maybe even discard them entirely, and craft the key points of our messages into a conversation lead by the people to whom we are presenting.
Administrivia
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Tyner Blain logo RC1
I put together a candidate logo tonight – any feedback is welcome.
Requirements management software
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Consolodation in the RM Software space?
SteelTrace is targeted as a likely takeover candidate in this post from the Computer Business Review online. Borland (CaliberRM) and Teleologic (DOORS) are the most likely suitors identified in the article.
Requirements
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Composition In Requirements
This post isn’t about composition of requirements. It is about using the object-oriented concept of composition when expressing requirements. Composition is the notion that one object or entity is made up of multiple smaller objects. Grady Booch’s Object Oriented Analysis and Design with Applications (2nd Edition), is the de facto […]
Marketing
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Ideavirus – Marketing By Word Of Mouth
When you launch a new software product, or start a new blog, or a website, one way to get the word out is by viral marketing. Thanks to this post on the Presentation Zen website, I found a great presentation by Seth Godin here. Lots of good examples, from Google […]
Process Improvement / Project Management / Requirements / Software requirements specification
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Agile Requirements
One of the key points that enables James’ approach is “tight collaboration†between the program manager and the developers. He talks about the miracles that can happen when you have this, as conversations can cause time to miraculously appear in the schedule. And his use of the toaster analogy is spot on.
Communication / Requirements / UX
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More on talking to your audience
I was reading ok-cancel today, and saw an article about getting UI designs ‘through the gauntlet’ of different groups of people at the client. Kevin and Tom consistently provide great insights on how to thrive in the HCI world, providing insights both in how to navigate customer-politics and processes, and […]