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)

Having a structured conversation

Let's face it: having conversations is difficult. People tend to drift, topics are digressed from, and a myriad of other distractions may occur. A structured conversation is about focusing on specific aims and having a game plan when discussing requirements.

When should you use structured conversation? When having synchronous, interactive communication with the stakeholders, such as face-to-face, telephone, or internet meetings.

To have a fruitful conversation with the stakeholders and to be able to discern and capture their requirements, we need to structure our conversation with them in a very specific way:

  1. Identify the type of stakeholder you are conversing with. If they are a business sponsor – in other words, a non-acting stakeholder – then their goals will be accomplished through the interaction of some actors with our system. For instance, a security officer will aim to preserve system security. Her goals will...