If this month’s guest column strikes a familiar chord with you, welcome to the club. We have all been there. Caught in the maelstrom of unrealistic requirements and damnable deadlines, we grab for whatever tactic looks like it might keep us afloat. More often than not, we start putting in longer hours and expect everyone […]
© 2000 Johanna Rothman. This article was originally published in Software Testing and Quality Engineering, March/April 2000. Many of us have worked in test groups in which we felt as if we didn’t have enough time, hardware, or staff to do the work. In those situations it’s hard to escape the feeling that while somebody might be in
by Johanna Rothman. Originally published in Cutter’s Business-IT Alignment E-Mail Advisor, February 2, 2000. A number of IT alignment issues are related to the difficulties in hiring staff. Let’s assume you’re in “constant hiring” mode — you continually get resumes, interview people, and decide on whether to hire various candidates. But are you asking questions
© 2000 Johanna Rothman. You’re not going to meet schedule. Maybe requirements have taken longer. Perhaps in the middle of implementation, you uncover something requiring redesign. Maybe the developers haven’t met one milestone yet and you’re worried about the test time. What do you do? The first slip is the initial indication that something is
© 2000 Johanna Rothman. The push to web-ify your business can feel overwhelming, especially when senior management is already demanding to know whether it is ready and when it will be released. If your organization is struggling and does not want to review all of the requirements in detail to get a project moving, you
© 2000 Johanna Rothman. This article was originally published in Mass High Tech, 2000. “We’ll sell some consulting along with our product, until we’re making enough revenue. Then we’ll phase out the consulting, and be just a product company.” — senior manager at a Boston-area web-based startup Many startup software/web-based companies decide on a business model
© (2000) Johanna Rothman and IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from Johanna
© 2000 Johanna Rothman. Abstract Many of us would like a precise answer to the question: “What’s the correct staffing ratio for developers to testers in my product development organization?” Usually though, the only answer is “It depends”. Your answer depends on your situation: the kind of project you’re working on, your schedule constraints, the
© 2000 Johanna Rothman. Abstract Process improvement projects can be difficult to start, keep on track, and assess results. We can use the same requirements gathering and specification techniques that we use on product-projects on our process improvement projects. This paper discusses how to define requirements for process improvement projects and how to use reviews
by Johanna Rothman. Originally published in Cutter’s Business-IT Alignment E-Mail Advisor, December 8, 1999. I was recently with a client that was having trouble completing its high-level design spec for a key internal system. The spec the designer delivered was 50 pages of dense text in a small type size. The sponsor refused to read