Communication / Product Management / Requirements / Software requirements specification / Writing

Requirements Documents – One Man’s Trash

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…Is another man’s treasure. There are many different ways to document requirements when developing software. And there is a proliferation of requirements documents – MRD, PRD, SRS, FRS and design documents. Everyone has a perspective on what each document represents, and each person on the team has a unique perspective on what questions the document answers.

Requirements / Software requirements specification

Joel Spolsky Speaks Specs

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It seems that specs are like flossing: everybody knows they should be writing them, but nobody does.

Another for the wish I had said that list. Joel Sposky wrote a four part series on writing functional specifications in Oct 2000. Joel’s opening position is that all projects lasting more than a week, or with more than one developer, will be completed faster with specs than without them. He presents three giant reasons to use a requirements document as part of developing software
Three Giant Reasons

Communication / Process Improvement / Requirements / ROI / Software development / Software requirements specification

Software Requirements Specification Iteration and Prototyping

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Developing great software requirements demands iteration

In our previous post of an example of the software development process, we showed a linear flow through the process, as depicted in several posts over a couple weeks. What we failed to show was any of the iteration cycles, as Deepak points out by asking a great question in the comments on that post. In this post, we will show a little more about how the process works by showing how iteration fits into the machinery of software development.

Requirements / Software requirements specification / Writing

Stop Wasting Your Time – Don’t Bother Writing Functional Specs

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Don’t do it. Don’t use a functional spec to get superficial agreements and navigate the beurocracy that accompanies large projects. Don’t validate the specification trivially. Don’t deploy with a waterfall process (the spec is done, whew, now – on to design) and never revisit the spec. Don’t work with new developers, or remote developers, or anyone else who doesn’t have the context of direct eyeball-to-eyeball conversations with the customers. Also don’t hire any programmers without complete domain expertise in the customer’s business