Agile methods have proven their ability to improve project success rates. However, when agile methods are applied to complex projects, we need to further explore the area of effective customer involvement. According to the agile philosophy, the users must be part of the development team. But, Stefano Rizzo asks: What if there are thousands of users with good ideas dispersed around the globe and around the clock? Can a Product Owner really represent all their interests? At Polarion, Stefano says they have used social media to successfully couple agile methods with more traditional requirements elicitation approaches. After hosting some user conferences, they created a community of users, project managers, and developers. Soliciting and nurturing their discussions regarding the product has created a lot of fuel for requirements definition and refinement process. Key benefits include the involvement of more stakeholders, a better company reputation, and the ability to harvest unusual requirements and unsolicited feedback that are helpful for the release strategy and product usability.

1.
BW10
Concurrent Session
11/13/2013 3:45 PM
"Requirements Elicitation—the
Social Media Way"
Presented by:
Stefano Rizzo
Polarion Software
Brought to you by:
340 Corporate Way, Suite 300, Orange Park, FL 32073
888‐268‐8770 ∙ 904‐278‐0524 ∙ sqeinfo@sqe.com ∙ www.sqe.com

2. Stefano Rizzo
Polarion Software
In a career spanning some twenty years, Stefano Rizzo has been a
methodology consultant, a pre-sales engineer, an IT researcher, a
university professor, VP of R&D for a large consortium, Regional Sales
Director for a software company, and CEO of two software development
organizations. With his broad experience in the Application Lifecycle
Management arena, he has been leading Product Management for
Polarion Software’s product lines from its first release in 2005 until 2010. In
his current SVP Strategy & Business Development role, in addition to
defining corporate vision, he leads several research projects in the ALM
and PLM fields.

3. 07/09/13
Polarion Software®
Requirements Elicitation
The Social Media Way
Stefano Rizzo
SVP Strategy and Business Development
Boston, November 13th, 2013
• Our Company
1

4. 07/09/13
Overview
History
Privately held company founded in 2004,
First product release 2005
2
Polarion Software®
Polarion
Polarion Software®
5
www.polarion.com
3
In one pill
www.polarion.com
2

5. 07/09/13
Overview
Polarion in Numbers
1,000,000 +
users
250+
Fortune 1000 deployments
Polarion Software®
Overview
Polarion Software®
150+
10,000+
Registered community members
extensions
www.polarion.com
5
Global Presence
www.polarion.com
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3

6. 07/09/13
Overview
Polarion Software®
Achievements
Polarion Software®
Ovum ALM Decision Matrix
www.polarion.com
Polarion Customers
www.polarion.com
8
4

7. 07/09/13
• Scrum @ Polarion Software
Why Scrum?
The promise
– Shorten time to release
• …and ensure releases
– Transparency to management/customers
• …and release what’s expected
– Faster reaction
• to market needs
• to users’ feedback
• to the change
– Simplify synchronization of distributed teams
– Easier releasing to the market
• Lower effort to stabilization, less things to test
– Flexibility in prioritization, risk reduction
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
5

8. 07/09/13
But Scrum…
Known Issues
– Has proven its benefits in small projects
• Our main project is a huge one, lasting since 2004
– Frightens the board
• Do we control costs and releases?
– Gives power to the development team
• Does it ensure traceability and accountability?
– Needs the customer to be part of the team
• Where will we sit 1.000.000 users?
Polarion Software®
Ke
y
ad issu
d e
tod ress we
ay
www.polarion.com
• So, Scrum…
6

9. 07/09/13
Scrum in Polarion Software
When?
We moved to Scrum from a traditional Development
process 6 years ago
!
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
Scrum in Polarion Software
How?
• Polarion’s Iterative development has short iterations
• 2 weeks, with meetings at the beginning and at the end of
each iteration (called sprint in Scrum)
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
7

10. 07/09/13
Scrum in Polarion Software
Polarion Software®
We eat our own bread
www.polarion.com
Scrum in Polarion Software
Backlogs
• Product Backlog items
• User Stories, described in a way that at least the idea behind
each one is clear.
– “The user must be able to reset the status of an item to the
original one” (pretty good user story)
– “Improve the performance of the product” (bad user story)
• Business value for Backlog items
• Each User Story must be valuable for the user
• A good prioritization is critical to ensure the success of the
project
– Especially when you have two thousand candidates and the
ability to implement 10-12 in a iteration
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
8

11. 07/09/13
Scrum in Polarion Software
Our backlogs
Every Backlog has an owner
Backlog owners “play the user” into Sprint meetings
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
Scrum in Polarion Software
Polarion Software®
Backlogs
www.polarion.com
9

12. 07/09/13
Scrum in Polarion Software
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
Scrum in Polarion Software
Polarion Software®
Project progress
Release burndown
www.polarion.com
10

13. 07/09/13
• Requirements?
Requirements and Scrum
User stories
• The most difficult and critical job is to produce a good
backlog of User Stories.
– Altogether they cover the full product
• very hard to ensure
– They are flat and independent on each other!
• Team work on the stories one after another
– They must be small
• so you need to break “big” features into smaller sub stories –
thinking about user scenario for every small piece
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
11

14. 07/09/13
Requirements elicitation
Road to user stories
• So, provided that we cannot invite all our users to our
meetings, we have Product Managers “playing the
customer”
• PMs derive User Stories from:
– User Demand Management process
• Mainly fed by Professional Services and Sales
– Strategy meetings
• Lot of ideas, often far from the ground…
– Internal and customer surveys
• “Why that button is not blue?”
Polarion Software®
Scrum is good in…
www.polarion.com
Benefits
• Frequent and tangible results
– Short iterations with visible improvements
• Easy control over development activities
– But this needs discipline and tools
• Transparent project progress
– But this needs a good backlog (i.e. good User Stories)
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
12

15. 07/09/13
Scrum needs…
Implications
• In order to run Scrum effectively you must consider to:
– Keep iterations as short as possible (2 weeks max)
– Invest in product management/requirement spec.
• Definition of user stories is the critical bottleneck
• Innovation happens outside the development team
– Keep high motivation in the development team
• In “traditional” development, developers are requested to
invent a lot – with the shortfall that results could be different
from what expected
• With Scrum developers are told what to do precisely, so they
could be frustrated
Polarion Software®
Requirements and Scrum
www.polarion.com
Your job
• If you gather requirements for a SCRUM team you must
consider that:
– You are part of the Development Team, with them you
share success and blame
• User stories are discussed every day, not just at the
beginning of the development
• You must continuously try to find answers, examples,
clarifications for developers
– Your requirements must be decomposed into good
user stories
• Finding out a requirement is still the key, but taking it to its
real essence is not an easy task
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
13

16. 07/09/13
• The Social way
Before the Social way
What were we lacking?
• A million users but just few contacts
– Pretty typical in B2B
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
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17. 07/09/13
Before the Social way
You get just…
• Complains
• Issues
• Strong requests
Polarion Software®
Before the Social way
www.polarion.com
You miss (quite) completely
• Appreciation
• Small issues – like usability difficulties
• Users’ “mood”
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
15

18. 07/09/13
Let’s try Social
Polarion Software®
Let’s try Social
Which Social?
www.polarion.com
A Social place
• Place vs. Channel
– It was clear from the very beginning: it’s not a new
communication channel
– It’s a beer with friends
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
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19. 07/09/13
Our experience
How to start?
• Start with user conference
– Meeting each other helps engagement a lot
• Create a community
– With the social media that better fits your users
• Enlarge the community
– Drill down companies with contests, “tell a friend”,
gadgets…
– Put every employee you have in the community
• Nurture the community
– Post some useful content, every day at least!!!
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
Our experience
Reputation
• Social is reputation
– Can be good, can be bad
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
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20. 07/09/13
Our experience
Reputation
• Reputation is an investment
– For technology makers reputation was coming from
the product
– Now is the product + your employees talking with their
customers
• They will probably do it, anyhow
– Better to give them time to do it and teach them how
to do it
– Nurture the community, every day if not every minute
Polarion Software®
Our experience
www.polarion.com
Which outcome?
• A lot of material…
– Unstructured
– From generic to too specific
• A lot of ideas…
– Fuel for usability improvements
– Clear understanding of most used and unused
features
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
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21. 07/09/13
Outcome
How much data?
• Can be too small…
Polarion Software®
Small data
www.polarion.com
Why?
• In case of small feedback, answer to these
questions:
– Are we using the right medium?
– Did we set the stage in the right way?
– Are we using the right language?
– Do we properly nurture the community?
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
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22. 07/09/13
Outcome
Big Data
• Can be too big…
Polarion Software®
Big Data
www.polarion.com
How?
• In case of too much data you need to invest into Big
Data analysis. You will get:
– Product improvements
– Inspiration for your product strategy
– Inspiration for your marketing strategy
• You will not get
– Innovation: “only” a fertile soil for innovative minds
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
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23. 07/09/13
• The Polarion way
Issues
Popular media not always
working
• Selecting the right platform is critical
– You should always use the platform of your users, not
force them to use something else…
– What do our customer and the customer of our
customers use???
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
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24. 07/09/13
Social Polarion
Social features in our product
• Our typical users
– System Engineers
– Software Engineers
– Business Analysts
– Requirements Engineers and QA people
• They normally don’t use popular social media to
discuss about their job-related stuff
– They use Polarion!!!
– So we made our product more Social
Polarion Software®
Social Polarion
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
Engage and collaborate
www.polarion.com
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25. 07/09/13
Social Polarion
Polarion Software®
Social Polarion
Polarion Software®
Approve and comment
www.polarion.com
Mobile
www.polarion.com
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26. 07/09/13
• Conclusions
Lessons learned
Results
• Engage your users!
– involvement of more stakeholders
– better company reputation
– ability to harvest unusual requirements and
unsolicited feedback
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
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27. 07/09/13
Lessons learned
Benefits for us (you)
• Improved release strategy
• Improved product easiness of use
Polarion Software®
www.polarion.com
• Questions?
stefano.rizzo@polarion.com
tw: steriz
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