I’ve been thinking more about requirements. In the most recent two assessments I’ve done, both organizations have been stuck on thinking they could define their requirements before design and implementation. IWBNI (It Would Be Nice If) users could know their requirements early. For small projects (a couple of people, maybe a couple of months) […]
If you haven’t read Joel Spolsky’s entry on office architecture stop and read that first. Finally, an office in which people can successfully work alone andwith other people — and who don’t have to worry about keeping their voices down. I’m amazed at the space per person (425 sq. ft if I understood). Most
One of the most difficult problems in software development is knowing how to elicit and discuss requirements. It’s difficult because the people who are supposed to know the requirements don’t always have a clear idea of what they want. And, even people with tremendous communication and other soft skills don’t always have good ways
Many people who define requirements use some form of documentation to organize their requirements. Too often, that documentation is in the form of a text document. Because text is so bad at describing what a user interface does, the text becomes a design document for the user interface. Then the developers and testers are
When I teach and discuss project management issues, I talk about project constraints and project requirements. Most people immediately think of the “iron triangle”: cost, schedule, and quality. But I don’t find that the iron triangle is sufficient when trying to discuss project tradeoffs. Project constraints and requirements have more than three sides. Project constraints