Book Image

Managing Software Requirements the Agile Way

By : Fred Heath
Book Image

Managing Software Requirements the Agile Way

By: Fred Heath

Overview of this book

Difficulty in accurately capturing and managing requirements is the most common cause of software project failure. Learning how to analyze and model requirements and produce specifications that are connected to working code is the single most fundamental step that you can take toward project success. This book focuses on a delineated and structured methodology that will help you analyze requirements and write comprehensive, verifiable specifications. You'll start by learning about the different entities in the requirements domain and how to discover them based on customer input. You’ll then explore tried-and-tested methods such as impact mapping and behavior-driven development (BDD), along with new techniques such as D3 and feature-first development. This book takes you through the process of modeling customer requirements as impact maps and writing them as executable specifications. You’ll also understand how to organize and prioritize project tasks using Agile frameworks, such as Kanban and Scrum, and verify specifications against the delivered code. Finally, you'll see how to start implementing the requirements management methodology in a real-life scenario. By the end of this book, you'll be able to model and manage requirements to create executable specifications that will help you deliver successful software projects.
Table of Contents (12 chapters)

Summary

In this chapter, we put our previous learning into the context of starting a real project. Knowing all the techniques, methods, and processes needed to manage requirements and create specifications is very important, but there are other, less tangible aspects of working on a software project that can make a difference. The first two meetings with our client's stakeholders are critical. The first meeting (I call it first contact) is where we establish communication channels and start managing expectations. This is where we start getting a real feel for what our clients expect and desire from our system. After our first meeting, we should be working to produce the outline of a requirements model, which we will open up for feedback to all our stakeholders.

Having our requirements model and specification scrutinized regularly builds trust and confidence between us and the stakeholders. This is why that second client meeting is so important, because it establishes all these...