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)

Chapter 7: Feature-First Development

So far in this book, we've learned all about analyzing and modeling requirements, turning them into executable specifications, that is, features, and organizing our specifications into a system backlog. This chapter is about the next step: turning our specifications into working, delivered software. We will see how to integrate our features within the two most popular Agile approaches to software development, the Scrum framework, and the Kanban method. We will learn how to create and manage a task board and how to use it as a springboard to deliver the software we have specified in our features, while effectively dealing with change. Specifically, we will learn about the following topics:

  • Setting up for successful delivery
  • Effecting just-in-time development
  • Working with Scrum
  • Working within Kanban

By the end of the chapter, you will know how to leverage accurate, durable, and well-scoped features – that you...