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I'm not against Scrum. I love it, it's right on my second preference right after RAD, however in my current team they made me hate it. We're possibly doing it in the worst possible way.
We have the usual Sprint planning which takes roughly 30 minutes while writing user stories ourselves and that's all. Right in that 30 minute we answer questions like the following:
What should the user do?
What is needed for this (Subtasks).
How much time will it take?
Okay we're done, see you tomorrow morning in the daily stand-up meeting.
This really frustrates me and they won't listen to me. There is no planning, like at all. At the point of (2) all 4 developers talking about different ways of solving a particular problem. It would be fine, but we also don't have any clarified vision and thus everyone has different understanding of where is the whole project headed. Thus our ideas completely differs. This usually ends up in chaos. For example the most recent story in our newest shiny project's first sprint:
Vision: We need an application to perform unit testing on X application.
User stories:
User logs in
Create DB table (No schema has been clarified)
Create Login View
Authenticate user to Y server.
User sees the available unit tests
Create a view to display unit tests
Read DB table
Implement CRUD operations
User executes unit tests.
Implement selection to the upper view
Add an execute operation
Display the result in a new page
What my worries were:
Vision doesn't say anything about where this whole project is headed thus we will end up re-implementing the majority of our functions when going to the next spring, or after that, or after that... (Checked - this happened right away; I can't help it I just hate to work on something that will be erased right at the start of the next spring. I don't think Scrum is about it, it would be really useless)
No actual planning. We haven't clarified anything what the DB should look like so how to create it? I can create a DB for such a system with 1 to N tables depending on what the project should achieve in the future but this is not so serious as a DB can easily be extended.
Based on (2) we started working on different parts. I created the DB while others created views and again others created operation implementations. All of us had different understanding and even in just a day we ended up with non-compatible models that just couldn't be integrated.
What have we done wrong:
No planning. My team just hates planning, they're like act first and ask later. I'm like: I.DO.NOT.DO.SOMETHING.TWICE.BECASE.YOU.ARE.LAZY.TO.DO.PROPER.PLANNING.
No communication between team members, but even I didn't expect that just under one day we will end up like that.
What is going wrong in here? Is it just me with the wrong understanding of scrum or my worries are true? This is giving me so much stress at work I barely can handle it anymore.
I'm intrigued as to who "they" are in this line : "This really frustrates me and they won't listen to me." ?
It reads as if you're referring to the rest of the scrum team. If so, I suggest you need to get to a "we" footing as soon as possible and work on communication.
With regard to some of the items in your post, a few things come to mind immediately:
If you don't have one, you need a product owner to own the product, it's vision and it's backlog. If you do have one, they may benefit from good training or coaching
You are absolutely right about needing a Product Vision. You seem to have one but, you infer that it describes some functionality rather than a complete product vision. If so, have you tried to discuss this within your team?
If you don't have one, you need a scrum master to help the product owner and development team to play by the rules of scrum and, in your case, encourage communication within the team. If you do have one, they may benefit from good training or coaching
Concerning your worries, I would add:
I think you mean 'sprint' where you write 'spring'
It is common in scrum that product backlog items are changed to reflect better understanding
You shouldn't need to describe the database in depth when you start a project. Scrum works best with emergent architecture based on implemented functionality
If multiple developers work in the same area without communicating, it's highly likely that you will step on each other's toes and get the outcomes you describe
To learn ASP.NET MVC, I am thinking of creating a community forum like SO where people can rate posts, users etc. and the user can thereby gain points. I just can't figure out if the points should be added to the user profile whenever an action is done (post rated up/down, user created new post etc.) or if it should be calculated from the different activities the user has done.
I have a few pro's and con's for both ways of doing it:
Add rating:
Pro:
Easier to implement, and much faster and less resource intensive.
Con:
If the value of the different activities change, you can't do anything about it.
No way of showing a history on how you have gotten your points.
Calculating rating:
Pro:
Much easier to have a point-history for both the user and people viewing the account.
Possibility to change the amount of points for a given activity.
Con:
A little more difficult to implement.
More resource extensive (can be prevented by caching the data, or creating a job which calculates the points).
I think you've pretty much thought of everything. I can just offer some engineering tips. All things equal, always start of with what's easier to implement.
Now there are some cons with that as you say, so they're not equal, they don't offer the same functionality. So can you live without the history? If not, implement calculating first. Your model will be tight and well defined, which is always nice.
IF you determine later on that this is too cpu intensive, only then do you go about fixing it with a cache or a job. Good ideas, both, btw. 90% of the time, unless you really measure it, you'll be laboring on optimizations that are not necessary. Unnecessary optimizations are wrong.
It looks like you are trying to build something like stackoverflow, and Stackoverflow does have a history where your points came from. When you will use linq, the calculation method could be done purely in SQL, without a lot of effort on programming skills. (although it'd be a bit more advanced than the normal linq querys)
I'd go for the second option, merely because it's more interesting, you'll learn more about linq, caching, and MVC overall.
You can use ActionFilter classs to catch every action that adds/deletes user points. Like AuditActionFilter class. This can be done just by putting action filter attribute on top of corresponding methods. In the audit action filter class, you can figure out which method is executed easility using filterContext object and track the progress of points for each user in a flat file or xml, which you can show/parse when he wants to see his history.
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I'm starting to learn about Scrum, and I'm interested in trying it out with our development team. I have a lot of questions about it...but my biggest mental roadblock is in the actual graphical design.
With our current development cycle [waterfall-esque], our graphical designer lays out the page with all the imagery and such based on a loose PRD. If we were to utilize the methods of Scrum, how would this development take place? I think we're used to seeing the big picture and driving towards it...as opposed to fitting the visual pieces together as we go, which is what I'd expect the Scrum policy for graphical design to be.
Would it be unheard of to at least wireframe all the functionality in the backlog? Or would it be wiser to--for the first sprint--design its functionality in such a way that we can add the new features of other sprints as we go? (i.e. When it's time for a new feature, discuss "Where would this fit into the current design?")
here's how I'd suggest you do it (ie, how we have tried to do it)
Pre-sprint 0: make sure you have a good vision of what you want to do. Doesn't have to be super detailed, but should not be "we want to build a website which is social"
Sprint 0: Developers tool up - setup the CI servers, work on the deployment scripts etc, so all the basic framework is done. At the end of this, you should be able to push a button (worst case: run a single command on a REMOTE server) which takes the code in your source control system, builds it, packages it, runs all the tests you want on it, reports that back, and if possible, installs it on a test server (or atleast results in a package you can install on the test server).
At this time, the designer is doing the wireframes. Their aim is to do basic wireframes for as much of the site as you think you need (think sitemap and flow not fields and pixels). Then, when thats done, work out with the PM's whats most important, and go into detail on that - wireframe. Not pixels YET.
Project managers and the like are working with the designer and the business/stakeholder, writing up stories and tasks for you lot to do and track. Obviously, they need to have an idea of the sitemap etc to do this.
This may take more than one sprint. start with one (I recommend 2-3 week sprints - 1 is too short, 4 is too long), see how much you still need to do etc.
So at the end of sprint 0, you have:
Lots of stories, in priority order (you CAN add more later, infact you will always as requirements change)
A sitemap (ie, a general idea of what the whole thing is going to contain)
Wireframes for the first block of work
All your tools are working and setup
You CI, bug tracking, source control and deployment systems are in place
So then you begin sprint 1
Keep in mind that for the first 3-4 sprints, you will not know how much work you can do in the sprint, so EXPECT to get it wrong! Take off as much work (in the priority order the business/PM has put them in) as you think you can FOR SURE get done. you can always take more later!
You lot develop those pages, and the designer(s) wireframe up the next block of pages (as determined by the PM's). Maybe the designer does the art for those pages, so you can do it in the next sprint
So, you are developing what you have, and the designers are working on stuff for your next sprint.
Of course, they could have a scrum process going too, just they started a sprint earlier!
now repeat until you run out of work
during a sprint, if (say) a requirement changes or something new is added, then a new story is written for that, and it's scheduled into the work. If it's super high priority, it may go at the top and be the top item for the next sprint (which will be 1-2 weeks away, usually). Or it may be a nice to have, so it goes at the bottom - the business decides.
PM's/designers need to know they can change things, but changes DO have consequences, so it's not in their (financial) interest to chop and change back and forward. but requirements DO change, and XP and Scrum deal with this better than waterfall.
Dont forget:
you can stop a sprint at any time and go back to planning, eg if the requirements change too much, or you run out of work
you can schedule more work than you have time to do, as long as that work hasn't been committed to (ie, it's "extra" or "stretch" work)
Your PM should be able to predict when the project will end - look at how much work you did in the last sprint (your velocity), and divide the amount of work left by that number, and you get the number of sprints to go. Easy.
Oh, and read up on story points - dont estimate stories in hours or days. Use points. To bootstrap that, just make the first story you estimate (say) an 8 (the sequence is 1,2,3,5,8,13,21,40,60,100,infinite). Then take the second story, and estimate it relative to the first - is it double the work (13)? half the work (5)? about the same (8)?
At the end of the sprint, add up how many points you did, and that's your velocity. The max amount of work you can COMMIT to do doing in the next sprint is that amount. You CAN always stop the sprint early, or just pull more work off the backlog etc if you run out early. As you go along, your velocity will stabalize.
Damn, I'm sure there are books etc on how to run it, so I'll stop :)
I strongly disagree with the answer provided by Jason. The whole point of Scrum is to get rid of the method where designers first "do their thing" and then go on to other stuff. That's completely and 100% against all lean / Scrum principles!
The way to incorporate designers in a Scrum process? Throw 'em into the mix! Make sure you're not just wrapping a waterfall project into Scrum as that's the best way towards failure! Scrum only works when it's implemented without exceptions. "Scrum, but..." is the worst project model. Organize work so that it's possible for concurrent designing and developing. Don't overdo initial design, but make it a push-pull situation, where both sides of the coin influence the other. The point of Scrum is to iterate, iterate and iterate, so take full benefit from that.
Also, it's pretty lean to actually shun traditional Photoshop-based design altogether. You can read more about this from this excellent blog post in Signal vs. Noise:
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1061-why-we-skip-photoshop
I've done this before where the Designers did their thing in the early iterations, and their work product was used by the dev team in later iterations. As the dev team started work, the designers would move ahead to other parts of the project, or possibly to other projects.
I think we're used to seeing the big
picture and driving towards it
You can still do this. Your designers can do a bigger up-front design, and the dev team can use Scrum to iterate towards that.
For the the design part in sprint 0 you can use a technique like Styletyles (http://styletil.es) to determine the graphical style needed for the project. So you dont need a big design upfront and still be agile when you are sprinting.
It's easy peasy! :) Well, let me share how do we do it.
First Sprint
1) Product owner creates wire-frames and add to backlog (we use Yodiz, www.yodiz.com)
2) Our graphic designer create mockups and put them on mockup sharing tool (www.concept.ly)
3) Our developers work on setting up servers. If everything is already ready we have pretty smart Product owner, you will always have items in backlog to select.
Sprint Two
1) Developer start working on the finalized mockups, which were finalized on conceptly.
2) Designer work on other wire-frame added by product owner in backlog.
I told you it's easy!
I'd like to share . I'm the scrum master for a development team of a future social app. This team has in it 1 User Interface designer, 1 User Experience designer(me), 1 front end developer(css,ajax etc), and 3 programmers.
This is our first ever project using a SCRUM framework so it's been quite challenging. The trend during our scrum daily meetings is that our design work are never quite done done because our initial product backlog had stories like 'User wants to be persuaded to sign up' and then we added on that story a 'way to demo' so from there we could determine what needs to be done (i.e. we need to do wireframe, have copywriting done, etc...)
That, could be done better. Itemize every task based on that story, and estimate time for each task. For example, during product backlog, we could from there on create these in order: Site Maps > Task Flows > Wireframes
Now the question is, do we do all these in a sprint? Or should we do this even before any sprint? Defeats the purpose of scrum if we do out of sprints right?
Those who have done user experience design will know that these tasks take quite an amount of time to prepare. So why not make all these part of a sprint as well? Get programmers involved in these tasks as well.
Wireframing is very very important throughout the duration of the project. It's like the blueprint to a building, where its used from start to finish.
So, do an initial wireframe based on the product backlog during your first sprint. And adjust the wireframe accordingly during every other sprint. Our programmers will design their code based on the task flow and then create it visually based on the wireframe.
Oh, btw, dont bother too much about how the product is going to look like (tho having an intial design mockup is always a good thing). Instead, focus on the user needs and wants, and design a very user-centric flow to achieve just that. Our Designer later then figures out what kind of interface he is going to devise. If the wireframe was done proper, the designer will have very few problems designing the user interface. Same goes for creating copywriting.
In summary, work hand in hand during every iteration. For beginners out there (like me) give SCRUM a chance to work for you. If it can work for companies like fantasyinteractive.com , so can it work for you n me :)
p.s. for great wireframes, use omnigraffle (mac) tis the shite!
If we were to utilize the methods of Scrum, how would this development take place?
while this post is quite old, it prompted me to research on my own. i found Jeff Patton's "Twelve emerging practices" for UX designers/practitioners, which i thought to be apt to this question specifically, and quite a useful frame set:
Drive: UX practitioners are part of the customer or product owner team.
Research, model, and design up front - but only just enough.
Chunk your design work
Use parallel track development to work ahead, and follow behind.
Buy design time with complex engineering stories.
Cultivate a user validation group for use for continuous user validation.
Schedule continuous user research in a separate track from development .
Leverage user time for multiple activities.
Use RITE to iterate UI before development.
Prototype in low fidelity.
Treat prototype as specification.
Become a design facilitator.
if you'd like to dig deeper, jeff spells it out agileproductdesign.com.
I'll do a demo of my code to slightly non-technical audience, and I need to show them what I've got in my project (about 15K lines of code). I'm trying to convince them that I've spend time on the project and it's in a good state.
These guys planning to invest money into this product. Therefore I should convince them that this app worth the price that they are going to spend and justify the time I've spent, secondly they should see that this is something takes time and I know what I'm doing (basically I need to win their trust) .
What metrics I can use other than "lines of code"? (Maybe lines of comment?)
What are the best tools (preferably free) to generate a report from .NET Projects?
UPDATE :
Also a way to provide "project cost - cocomo" would be cool, like this one :
FOUND:
http://www.cms4site.ru/utility.php?utility=cocomoii will help you to calculate an estimated cost for your project.
If they're non-technical, it won't matter. It will be like trying to sell a high-end bike to people who don't know a bike from a car. 15k lines of code won't matter to them any more than 300k lines of code will.
You need to find something other than the actual code to wow them with.
Can you code up some demos and tell them how short time it will take them to build similar applications with your code? Like "If you use my code, you can build this multimedia application in 15 minutes without writing more than a few lines of code". Non-technical people generally love saving time and money.
It probably depends on how "slightly" they are in the non-technical department.
An investor only cares about money. Investors start at the exit and work backwards. Knowing this, pitch your project in terms of the return they will get in their investment.
Key points would include:
Your expertise: Do you know the market you want to sell in to? Are you leveraging your expertise in some way to make the project a reality?
Risk: Using your already existing code base lowers risk in terms of both time and money. They will probably do technical due diligence to validate your claims, so be honest here.
Time to Market: Having a code base in place will reduce their time to market, which may be significant.
Vision: They need to know that there is a future for your product. This is your chance to get them excited!
Investment is about the future, not the past, so understand that you need to achieve what you are promising. The path you trod to get to where you are now may be interesting, but largely irrelevant to the investor. What I'm trying to say is sell the vision, not where you are now or where you've been.
Good luck and hope you get what you need!
It's not clear to me from your question whether you're talking about people who would buy the use of your product or ownership of your product.
In either case, ask yourself these questions:
"What problem(s) does this product solve for my users, from their point of view?"
"What does this product let the users do, that they already want to do, but can't do without it?"
"What does this product let the users do, that they already want to do, but can't do as easily without it?"
Features don't matter. Menus and dialogs don't matter (unless they require explanation, in which case they matter in the negative sense).
If you want numbers that interest a potential buyer of (an instance of) the product, talk in terms of how much time or money the buyer can save by using your product.
If you want numbers that interest a potential buyer of shares in your company or product, talk in terms of the size of the market, how you've analyzed that market's needs, and the ROI of any investment.
I've had success showing potential customers our automated build cycle, in slideshow form. I took them through our "production line" as if it was a factory tour, and showed the nice colored bars of coverage reports, uptilted lines of historical lines of code, pie charts of breakdowns of lines of code per module.
Then I did the same for everything aroung the actual building. So there's a requirements pipeline where they are involved, and a test/validation cycle where they are again involved.
It may not mean anything to them, but it shows them you have control over your process, and control over the quality of the delivered end product.
Please note that although people may be non-technical, try to be as honest as possible. As soon as they discover one single tiny lie in your story, you're lost. And chances are that there's that one technical guy in the back who can ask that one question which makes your house of cards fall down.
Happy sales!
"good code" doesn't matter unless you are demonstrating the medium and long term advantages of it - enhanced flexibility, simplicity, which saves customer time/money while adding agility.
I think explaining the more complex aspects of the code and the work that went into it to any audience will help show how much work and effort have gone into a project.
Hours spent coding could be a good metric to give them.
Talk about the features. Explain what you have working or almost working. Go at it from what they are interested in.
Try to show them visuals that they care about if you can. I think a few minutes doodling on a board would be better than showing lines of code.
The only thing that is likely to matter to a buyer (particularly a non-technical one)is functionality. I would concentrate on selling the features. You might consider discussion how you have tested it to verify that it performs as you claim.
I wouldn't use code per se, since a non-techie wouldn't understand it. Boasting about quantity is probably meaningless (how does a non-techie know that a 1MLOC project is significant? As for quality, you can present, e.g., maintainability metrics, test coverage, things like that. Feel free to show off your excellent toolchain too (continuous integration and all that), your mastery of various performance-testing tools. Also, showing things like Workflow Foundation helps - customers like to see how their business processes can be turned directly into code with a diagram notation.
EDIT modified to reflect OP's clarification (in comment here) that these potential buyers are looking to re-sell the software
Re-sellers are going to be looking for three things:
Is anyone going to make something better, cheaper or more quickly?
Is this guy going to be able to use our investment effectively to produce more?
Can we sell what this guy has produced, and will produce?
How to address points 1 and 2 have been very well addressed in other answers, but it's question 3 which is the hardest to prove for us techie people. It's also extremely important - if you can go to these buyers and hand them 3 killer benefits which they can repeat with more flair and Powerpoint when they're doing their sales calls, you'll be off to a good start :)
The main thing you have to do is to take a step back from your work and look at the:
features: what does it do
advantages: why is it better
benefits: why should the customer care
Features are closest to what you care about as a developer, but are pretty much irrelevant to non-technical buyers. Advantages are an essential step in understanding your competition and the customers' alternatives.
By putting features and advantages together, you can hit the customer with a number of benefits, e.g.:
using my software will save you $0.01 per transaction, or $40,000 p.a.
my software will increase customer retention by 5%
your admins will need 15% less time to deploy changes using my software
These are the things that customers care about: what's going to be good for the company, and good for them.
To be brutally honest: the end customer don't care how much effort you put into it (LoC or any other metric), they don't care how well it's written (comments, tests, any other metric), they don't care how hard a problem it is to solve, they don't care about features.
Their only requirement is that it will save them time / effort / money. You know that how hard you've worked to solve the problem, and solve it well, is key to their requirement, but it's secondary. You need to make it perfectly clear why them buying their stuff will mean they'll get promoted.
For COCOMO - Project Cost Estimation
I found this website, it's kind of a manual process but it'll do.
http://www.cms4site.ru/utility.php?utility=cocomoii
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How do you go about the requirements gathering phase? Does anyone have a good set of guidelines or tips to follow? What are some good questions to ask the stakeholders?
I am currently working on a new project and there are a lot of unknowns. I am in the process of coming up with a list of questions to ask the stakeholders. However I cant help but to feel that I am missing something or forgetting to ask a critical question.
You're almost certainly missing something. A lot of things, probably. Don't worry, it's ok. Even if you remembered everything and covered all the bases stakeholders aren't going to be able to give you very good, clear requirements without any point of reference. The best way to do this sort of thing is to get what you can from them now, then take that and give them something to react to. It can be a paper prototype, a mockup, version 0.1 of the software, whatever. Then they can start telling you what they really want.
See obligatory comic below...
In general, I try and get a feel for the business model my customer/client is trying to emulate with the application they want built. Are we building a glorified forms processor? Are we retrieving data from multiple sources in a single application to save time? Are we performing some kind of integration?
Once the general businesss model is established, I then move to the "must" and "must nots" for the application to dictate what data I can retrieve, who can perform what functions, etc.
Usually if you can get the customer to explain their model or workflow, you can move from there and find additional key questions.
The one question I always make sure to ask in some form or another is "What is the trickiest/most annoying thing you have to do when doing X. Typically the answer to that reveals the craziest business/data rule you'll have to implement.
Hope this helps!
Steve Yegge talks fun but there is money to be made in working out what other people's requirements are so i'd take his article with a pinch of salt.
Requirements gathering is incredibly tough because of the manner in which communication works. Its a four step process that is lossy in each step.
I have an idea in my head
I transform this into words and pictures
You interpret the pictures and words
You paint an image in your own mind of what my original idea was like
And humans fail miserably at this with worrying frequency through their adorable imperfections.
Agile does right in promoting iterative development. Getting early versions out to the client is important in identifying what features are most important (what ships in 0.1 - 0.5 ish), helps to keep you both on the right track in terms of how the application will work and quickly identifies the hidden features that you will miss.
The two main problem scenarios are the two ends of the scales:
Not having a freaking clue about what you are doing - get some domain experts
Having too many requirements - feature pit. - Question, cull (prioritise ;) ) features and use iterative development
Yegge does well in pointing out that domain experts are essential to produce good requirements because they know the business and have worked in it. They can help identify the core desire of the client and will help explain how their staff will use the system and what is important to the staff.
Alternatives and additions include trying to do the job yourself to get into the mindset or having a client staff member occasionally on-site, although the latter is unlikely to happen.
The feature pit is the other side, mostly full of failed government IT projects. Too much, too soon, not enough thought or application of realism (but what do you expect they have only about four years to make themselves feel important?). The aim here is to work out what the customer really wants.
As long as you work on getting the core components correct, efficient and bug-free clients usually remain tolerant of missing features that arrive in later shipments, as long as they eventually arrive. This is where iterative development really helps.
Remember to separate the client's ideas of what the program will be like and what they want the program to achieve.
Some clients can create confusion by communicating their requirements in the form of application features which may be poorly thought out or made redundant by much simpler functionality then they think they require. While I'm not advocating calling the client an idiot or not listening to them I feel that it is worth forever asking why they want a particular feature to get to its underlying purpose.
Remember that in either scenario it is of imperative importantance to root out the quickest path to fulfilling the customers core need and put you in a scenario where you are both profiting from the relationship.
Wow, where to start?
First, there is a set of knowledge someone should have to do analysis on some projects, but it really depends on what you are building for who. In other words, it makes a big difference if you are modifying an enterprise application for a Fortune 100 corporation, building an iPhone app, or adding functionality to a personal webpage.
Second, there are different kinds of requirements.
Objectives: What does the user want to accomplish?
Functional: What does the user need to do in order to reach their objective? (think steps to reach the objective/s)
Non-functional: What are the constraints your program needs to perform within? (think 10 vs 10k simultaneous users, growth, back-up, etc.)
Business rules: What dynamic constraints do you have to meet? (think calculations, definitions, legal concerns, etc.)
Third, the way to gather requirements most effectively, and then get feedback on them (which you will do, right?) is to use models. User cases and user stories are a model of what the user needs to do. Process models are another version of what needs to happen. System diagrams are just another model of how different parts of the program(s) interact. Good data modeling will define business concepts and show you the inputs, outputs, and changes that happen within your program. Models (and there are more than I listed) are really the key to the concern you list. A few good models will capture the needs and from models you can determine your requirements.
Fourth, get feedback. I know I mentioned this already, but you will not get everything right the first time, so get responses to what your customer wants.
As much as I appreciate requirements, and the models that drive them, users typically do not understand the ramifications of of all their requests. Constant communication with chances for review and feedback will give users a better understanding of what you are delivering. Further, they will refine their understanding based on what they see. Unless you're working for the government, iterations and / or prototypes are helpful.
First of all gather the requirements before you start coding. You can begin the design while you are gathering them depending on your project life cicle but you shouldn't ever start coding without them.
Requirements are a set of well written documents that protect both the client and yourself. Never forget that. If no requirement is present then it was not paid for (and thus it requires a formal change request), if it's present then it must be implemented and must work correctly.
Requirements must be testable. If a requirement cannot be tested then it isn't a requirement. That means something like, "The system "
Requirements must be concrete. That means stating "The system user interface shall be easy to use" is not a correct requirment.
In order to actually "gather" the requirements you need to first make sure you understand the businness model. The client will tell you what they want with its own words, it is your job to understand it and interpret it in the right context.
Make meetings with the client while you're developing the requirements. Describe them to the client with your own words and make sure you and the client have the same concept in the requirements.
Requirements require concise, testable example, but keep track of every other thing that comes up in the meetings, diagrams, doubts and try to mantain a record of every meeting.
If you can use an incremental life cycle, that will give you the ability to improve some bad gathered requirements.
You can never ask too many or "stupid" questions. The more questions you ask, the more answers you receive.
According to Steve Yegge that's the wrong question to ask. If you're gathering requirement it's already too late, your project is doomed.
High-level discussions about purpose, scope, limitations of operating environment, size, etc
Audition a single paragraph description of the system, hammer it out
Mock up UI
Formalize known requirements
Now iterate between 3 and 4 with more and more functional prototypes and more specs with more details. Write tests as you go. Do this until you have functional software and a complete, objective, testable requirements spec.
That's the dream. The reality is usually after a couple iterations everybody goes head-down and codes until there's a month left to test.
Gathering Business Requirements Are Bullshit - Steve Yegge
read the agile manifesto - working software is the only measurement for the success of a software project
get familiar with agile software practices - study Scrum , lean programming , xp etc - this will save you tremendous amount of time not only for the requirements gathering but also for the entire software development lifecycle
keep regular discussions with Customers and especially the future users and key-users
make sure you talk to the Persons understanding the problem domain - e.g. specialists in the field
Take small notes during the talks
After each CONVERSATION write an official requirement list and present it for approving. Later on it would be difficult to argue against all agreed documentation
make sure your Customers know approximately what are the approximate expenses in time and money for implementing "nice to have" requirements
make sure you label the requirements as "must have" , "should have" and "nice to have" from the very beginning, ensure Customers understand the differences between those types also
integrate all documents into the latest and final requirements analysis (or the current one for the iteration or whatever agile programming cycle you are using ... )
remember that requirements do change over the software life cycle , so gathering is one thing but managing and implementing another
KISS - keep it as simple as possible
study also the environment where the future system will reside - there are more and more technological restraints from legacy or surrounding systems , since the companies do not prefer to throw to the garbage the money they have invested for decades even if in our modern minds 20 years old code is garbage ...
Like most stages of the software development process its iteration works best.
First find out who your users are -- the XYZ dept,
Then find out where they fit into the organisation -- part of Z division,
Then find out what they do in general terms -- manage cash
Then in specific terms -- collect cash from tills, and check for till fraud.
Then you can start talking to them.
Ask what problem they want you want to solve -- you will get an answer like write a bamboozling system using OCR with shark technoligies.
Ignore that answer and ask some more questions to find out what the real problem is -- they cant read the till slips to reconcile the cash.
Agree a real solution with the users -- get a better ink ribbon supplier - or connect the electronic tills to the network and upload the logs to a central server.
Then agree in detail how they will measure the success of the project.
Then and only then propose and agree a detailed set of requirements.
I would suggest you to read Roger-Pressman's Software Engineering: A Practitioner's Approach
Before you go talking to the stakeholders/users/anyone be sure you will be able to put down the gathered information in a usefull and days-lasting way.
Use a sound-recorder if it is OK with the other person and the information is bulky.
If you heard something important and you need some reasonable time to write it down, you have two choices: ask the other person to wait a second, or say goodbye to that precious information. You wont remember it right, ask any neuro-scientist.
If you detect that a point need deeper review or that you need some document you just heard of, make sure you make a commitment with the other person to send that document or schedule another meeting with a more specific purpose. Never say "I'll remember to ask for that xls file" because in most cases you wont.
Not to long after the meeting, summarize all your notes, recordings and fresh thoughts. Just summarize it rigth. Create effective reminders for the commitments.
Again, just after the meeting, is the perfect time to understand why the gathering you just did was not as right as you thought at the end of the meeting. That's when you will be able to put down a lot of meaningful questions for another meeting.
I know the question was in the perspective of the pre-meeting, but please be aware that you can work on this matters before the meeting and end up with a much usefull, complete and quality gathering.
I've been using mind mapping (like a work breakdown structure) to help gather requirements and define the unknowns (the #1 project killer). Start at a high level and work your way down. You need to work with the sponsors, users and development team to ensure you get all the angles and don't miss anything. You can't be expected to know the entire scope of what they want without their involvement...you - as a project manager/BA - need to get them involved (most important part of the job).
There are some great ideas here already. Here are some requirements gathering principles that I always like to keep in mind:
Know the difference between the user and the customer.
The business owners that approve the shiny project are usually the customers. However, a devastating mistake is the tendency to confuse them as the user. The customer is usually the person that recognizes the need for your product, but the user is the person that will actually be using the solution (and will most likely complain later about a requirement your product did not meet).
Go to more than one person
Because we’re all human, and we tend to not remember every excruciating detail. You increase your likelihood of finding missed requirements as you talk to more people and cross-check.
Avoid specials
When a user asks for something very specific, be wary. Always question the biases and see if this will really make your product better.
Prototype
Don’t wait till launch to show what you have to the user. Do frequent prototypes (you can even call them beta versions) and get constant feedback throughout the development process. You’ll probably find more requirements as you do this.
I recently started using the concepts, standards and templates defined by the International Institute of Business Analysts organization (IIBA).
They have a pretty good BOK (Book of Knowledge) that can be downloaded from their website. They do also have a certificate.
Requirements Engineering is a bit of an art, there are lots of different ways to go about it, you really have to tailor it to your project and the stakeholders involved. A good place to start is with Requirements Engineering by Karl Wiegers:
http://www.amazon.com/Software-Requirements-Second-Pro-Best-Practices/dp/0735618798/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234910330&sr=8-2
and a requirements engineering process which may consist of a number of steps e.g.:
Elicitation - for the basis for discussion with the business
Analysis and Description - a technical description for the purpose of the developers
Elaboration, Clarification, Verification and Negotiation - further refinement of the requirements
Also, there are a number of ways of documenting the requirements (Use Cases, Prototypes, Specifications, Modelling Languages). Each have their advantages and disadvantages. For example prototypes are very good for elicitation of ideas from the business and discussion of ideas.
I generally find that writing a set of use cases and including wireframe prototypes works well to identify an initial set of requirements. From that point it's a continual process of working with technical people and business people to further clarify and elaborate on the requirements. Keeping track of what was initially agreed and tracking additional requirements are essential to avoid scope creep. Negotiation plays a bit part here also between the various parties as per the Broken Iron Triangle (http://www.ambysoft.com/essays/brokenTriangle.html).
IMO the most important first step is to set up a dictornary of domain-specific words. When your client says "order", what does he mean? Something he receives from his customers or something he sends to his suppliers? Or maybe both?
Find the keywords in the stakeholders' business, and let them explain those words until you comprehend their meaning in the process. Without that, you will have a hard time trying to understand the requirements.
i wrote a blog article about the approach i use:
http://pm4web.blogspot.com/2008/10/needs-analysis-for-business-websites.html
basically: questions to ask your client before building their website.
i should add this questionnaire sheet is only geared towards basic website builds - like a business web presence. totally different story if you are talking about web-based software. although some of it is still relavant (e.g. questions relating to look and feel).
LM
I prefer to keep my requirements gathering process as simple, direct and thorough as possible. You can download a sample document that I use as a template for my projects at this blog posting: http://allthingscs.blogspot.com/2011/03/documenting-software-architectural.html