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Requirements games
- 1. Requirements Gathering Games -
Enhance your BA Arsenal
BA Conference, Chennai
Sunil Mundra
Satish Viswanathan
Jan. 29, 2011
© ThoughtWorks 2008
- 2. Why Play Games?
• Increase collaboration between stakeholders and BA
• Highly effective due to visual effects
• Promote objectivity in stakeholder responses due to
shared abstraction
• Encourages participation from all stakeholders due to
feeling of empowerment
• Achieve consensus and ownership of requirements at
group level
• Fun!
© ThoughtWorks 2008
- 4. Goal Of The Game
To identify the most important features of the
solution
© ThoughtWorks 2008
- 5. How To Play The Game
• Ask stakeholders to imagine that they are selling the
proposed solution at a retail store
• Give them cardboard box and ask them to design a
product box that they would sell
• Ask them to write marketing slogans and features that
would help them to sell the solution
• When finished, pretend you are a prospect and ask the
stakeholders to use the product box to sell the solution
to you
© ThoughtWorks 2008
- 6. Why The Game Is Effective
• Selling ensures focus on benefits, rather than mere
features
• Limited space on the box makes people prioritize the
most important aspects
• Facilitates articulation of deep needs using a well-
understood metaphor
• Uncovers issues through observing interactions
between stakeholders
• Increases stakeholder enthusiasm as they get a feeling
of deciding what the solution should be
© ThoughtWorks 2008
- 8. Goal Of The Game
To understand solution relationships
© ThoughtWorks 2008
- 9. How To Play The Game
• Draw a circle in the center of the whiteboard and name
it as the proposed solution
• Ask stakeholders to draw other products and services
that they think are connected to the proposed solution
• Ask them to identify when, how and why these are used
and draw linkages based on these
• Ask them to highlight important relationships with the
proposed solution and also the relationship between
other products and services that are relevant to the
proposed solution
© ThoughtWorks 2008
- 10. Why The Game Is Effective
• Helps to discover potentially unknown relationships
• Helps to visualize solution boundary from the
stakeholders’ point of view
• Also helps draw out constraints external to the
proposed solution
• Discovering interrelationships among external entities
can lead to potential revenue generating opportunities
© ThoughtWorks 2008
- 12. Goal Of The Game
To identify the stakeholders’ pain areas
© ThoughtWorks 2008
- 13. How To Play The Game
• Draw a boat on a whiteboard
• Inform stakeholders that the boat is current
system/situation and the pain points are the anchors
• Ask stakeholders to identify the anchors
• Attach anchors to the boat. Create ‘meta anchors’ for
grouping similar pain areas, if required
• Review the anchors to separate the symptoms from the
problems. Probe the symptoms, if necessary, to get to
the problems
• Variation: Hot Air Balloon
© ThoughtWorks 2008
- 14. Why The Game Is Effective
• Provides way to express frustration without the bias of
‘group think’ or single person domination
• Need to write forces the stakeholders to focus on the
larger issues and keep out the trivial ones
• Many stakeholders are uncomfortable expressing
frustrations verbally and feel more at ease writing them
down
© ThoughtWorks 2008
- 16. Goal Of The Game
To prioritize features
© ThoughtWorks 2008
- 17. How To Play The Game
• Create a list of features of the proposed solution and
assign a price to each
• Give play money to each of the stakeholders
• Ask them to collaborate to buy features for the
immediate release
• Ensure the important features are priced such that no
single customer can buy them
• Ensure that the money available to stakeholders is less
than the price of all the features
• Game works best with 4-7 stakeholders across varied
roles
© ThoughtWorks 2008
- 18. Why The Game Is Effective
• Ensures stakeholder ownership of prioritization, thereby
avoiding post-delivery disappointments
• Pulls them away from “I want everything’ syndrome
• Helps stakeholders to arrive at consensus regarding
feature priorities
• Observing stakeholder negotiation leads to better
understanding of what stakeholders really want
© ThoughtWorks 2008
- 19. Making Games More Effective
• Be a Facilitator and not an Analyst while conducting the
games
• Ignore the ‘messiness’ of the output. Focus on the learnings
• Do not pass any judgment
• Ensure participation from all stakeholders. Prompt quiet
stakeholders where necessary
• Be careful about revealing your biases and expectations
• Listen
• Observe interactions between stakeholders – you will
understand a lot about the group dynamics
• Make it fun for everyone
• Have the outputs of the game displayed – this will prompt
more discussion and conversations
© ThoughtWorks 2008
