Slides on a presentation that we give. Requirements on Agile Projects

1. Requirements at
the Speed of
Light
Requirements on Agile
Projects
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2. What are Requirements?
1. A condition or capability needed by a user to
solve a problem or achieve an objective.
2. A condition or capability that must be met or
possessed by a product or product
component to satisfy a contract, standard,
specification, or other formally imposed
documents.
3. A documented representation of a condition
or capability as in (1) or (2).
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3. What are Requirements?
Requirements are any
description of what
the users want or
need.
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4. The Villain
Requirements Design Coding Verification Maintenance
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5. Building Walls
Artificial Barriers between Users and Developers.
The line in the sand that starts fights.
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6. Why Do Projects Fail?
•Lack of user input •Changing requirements
•Incomplete requirements •Unclear objectives
Copyright Seilevel Standish Group – CHAOS Report, 2004

7. A Better Way?
What if we got everyone together and just focused on
building the right software?
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8. What is Agile?
Individuals & Interactions Processes & Tools
Working Software Comprehensive Documentation
Customer Collaboration Contract Negotiation
Responding to Change Following a Plan
“That is, while there is value in the items
on the right, we value the items on the left
more.”
Copyright Seilevel 1Manifesto for Agile Software Development - http://agilemanifesto.org/

9. Many Flavors of Agile
• Scrum • Quick Iterations
• Extreme Programming • Just in Time
• Short Cycle Time • Test-Driven Development
• Spiral • and more...
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10. What you might see
REQUESTS BACKLOG REQUESTS
1 – REQUEST
2 – REQUEST
…
SPRINT
•The system shall
USER STORY 1 support user
As an
roles. Administrator User, I
Manage users and permissions
•The system shall support user
need to be able to manage
users and permissions, so that
permissions.SILENCE
•The system shall allow
unauthorized access to
restricted data is prevented.
Administrator users to modify
users’ permissions.
CONFIRMATION:
•The system shall ....
- Test case 1...
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11. Fanning the Flames
“In software development,
the design document is a
source code listing.”1
“The reality is that the
requirements document is
usually insufficient,
regardless of how much
effort goes into it…”2
Copyright Seilevel 1Developer.*, 2005 2Agile Modeling, 2007

12. Pendulum Effect
Too Much Documentation
.
.
.
???
.
.
.
Not Enough Information
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13. The Search for Balance
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14. Requirements Tips for Agile
Requirements in Agile Projects
How do you capture the right
requirements, the right way, at the
right time?
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15. Out of Date Documentation
Write requirements as confirmation statements.
Do them just in time for development iterations.
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16. Difficult to Remember Agreements
Sometimes, you really just have to write things down.
The human brain can’t track large numbers of tasks!
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17. Difficult to Remember all Rules
Complex business processes may have hundreds or
thousands of rules. Frame the rules as tests that are
used at the end of the iteration.
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18. Prototypes are Slower Than Paper
Writing down behavior is sometimes faster than
demonstrating it. Think about when it would make
sense to use paper mockups.
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19. Hard to Find Missing Requirements
A B C
C D A
D E F
F
H
G
I
B G H I
Use visual models to find holes in information.
Pictures are easy. Words are hard.
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20. Regulatory and Compliance
Requires Documentation
Sometimes you have a choice. Sometimes you don’t.
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21. Large Functionality cannot be
Subdivided
Break off story paths or steps. Use a backlog to track the
rest of what must be implemented.
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22. Requests with Architectural Impact
• Scalability
• Reliability
• Portability
• Availability
• Security
• Efficiency
• Localization
Many nonfunctional requirements have architectural
implications, and these are hard to retrofit.
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23. Long Range Budgeting & Planning
The State of Texas
budgets in two year
intervals. How would they
handle an Agile project?
You can control Time and Money, but not Scope.
Agile will focus on delivering the most important
features first.
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24. Agile is a Great Alternative to
Waterfall…
Agile development is just one of many tools in the
box, none of which is appropriate for every situation.
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25. Joy Beatty
Seilevel
www.seilevel.com/blog
Joy.Beatty@seilevel.com
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