Exploring Requirements

Negotiating a Common Understanding. Ways to the Get Started. Exploring the Possibilities. Clarifying Expectations. Greatly Improving the Odds of Success.

"This book is not only of practical value. It's also a lot of fun to read." Michael Jackson, The Open University. Do you need to know how to create good requirements? Discovering Requirements offers a set of simple, robust, and effective cognitive tools for building requirements. Using worked examples throughout the text, it shows you how to develop an understanding of any problem, leading to questions such as: What are you trying to achieve? Who is involved, and how? What do those people want? Do they agree? How do you envisage this working? What could go wrong? Why are you making these decisions? What are you assuming? The established author team of Ian Alexander and Ljerka Beus-Dukic answer these and related questions, using a set of complementary techniques, including stakeholder analysis, goal modelling, context modelling, storytelling and scenario modelling, identifying risks and threats, describing rationales, defining terms in a project dictionary, and prioritizing. This easy to read guide is full of carefully-checked tips and tricks. Illustrated with worked examples, checklists, summaries, keywords and exercises, this book will encourage you to move closer to the real problems you're trying to solve. Guest boxes from other experts give you additional hints for your projects. Invaluable for anyone specifying requirements including IT practitioners, engineers, developers, business analysts, test engineers, configuration managers, quality engineers and project managers. A practical sourcebook for lecturers as well as students studying software engineering who want to learn about requirements work in industry. Once you've read this book you will be ready to create good requirements!

Describes a method of negotiation that isolates problems, focuses on interests, creates new options, and uses objective criteria to help two parties reach an agreement.

Summary Specification by Example is an emerging practice for creating software based on realistic examples, bridging the communication gap between business stakeholders and the dev teams building the software. In this book, author Gojko Adzic distills interviews with successful teams worldwide, sharing how they specify, develop, and deliver software, without defects, in short iterative delivery cycles. About the Technology Specification by Example is a collaborative method for specifying requirements and tests. Seven patterns, fully explored in this book, are key to making the method effective. The method has four main benefits: it produces living, reliable documentation; it defines expectations clearly and makes validation efficient; it reduces rework; and, above all, it assures delivery teams and business stakeholders that the software that's built is right for its purpose. About the Book This book distills from the experience of leading teams worldwide effective ways to specify, test, and deliver software in short, iterative delivery cycles. Case studies in this book range from small web startups to large financial institutions, working in many processes including XP, Scrum, and Kanban. This book is written for developers, testers, analysts, and business people working together to build great software. Purchase of the print book comes with an offer of a free PDF, ePub, and Kindle eBook from Manning. Also available is all code from the book. What's Inside Common process patterns How to avoid bad practices Fitting SBE in your process 50+ case studies =============================================== Table of Contents Part 1 Getting started Part 2 Key process patterns Part 3 Case studies Key benefits Key process patterns Living documentation Initiating the changes Deriving scope from goals Specifying collaboratively Illustrating using examples Refining the specification Automating validation without changing specifications Validating frequently Evolving a documentation system uSwitch RainStor Iowa Student Loan Sabre Airline Solutions ePlan Services Songkick Concluding thoughts

“If the purpose is to create one of the best books on requirements yet written, the authors have succeeded.” —Capers Jones Software can solve almost any problem. The trick is knowing what the problem is. With about half of all software errors originating in the requirements activity, it is clear that a better understanding of the problem is needed. Getting the requirements right is crucial if we are to build systems that best meet our needs. We know, beyond doubt, that the right requirements produce an end result that is as innovative and beneficial as it can be, and that system development is both effective and efficient. Mastering the Requirements Process: Getting Requirements Right, Third Edition, sets out an industry-proven process for gathering and verifying requirements, regardless of whether you work in a traditional or agile development environment. In this sweeping update of the bestselling guide, the authors show how to discover precisely what the customer wants and needs, in the most efficient manner possible. Features include The Volere requirements process for discovering requirements, for use with both traditional and iterative environments A specification template that can be used as the basis for your own requirements specifications Formality guides that help you funnel your efforts into only the requirements work needed for your particular development environment and project How to make requirements testable using fit criteria Checklists to help identify stakeholders, users, non-functional requirements, and more Methods for reusing requirements and requirements patterns New features include Strategy guides for different environments, including outsourcing Strategies for gathering and implementing requirements for iterative releases “Thinking above the line” to find the real problem How to move from requirements to finding the right solution The Brown Cow model for clearer viewpoints of the system Using story cards as requirements Using the Volere Knowledge Model to help record and communicate requirements Fundamental truths about requirements and system development

Requirements engineering is the process by which the requirements for software systems are gathered, analyzed, documented, and managed throughout their complete lifecycle. Traditionally it has been concerned with technical goals for, functions of, and constraints on software systems. Aurum and Wohlin, however, argue that it is no longer appropriate for software systems professionals to focus only on functional and non-functional aspects of the intended system and to somehow assume that organizational context and needs are outside their remit. Instead, they call for a broader perspective in order to gain a better understanding of the interdependencies between enterprise stakeholders, processes, and software systems, which would in turn give rise to more appropriate techniques and higher-quality systems. Following an introductory chapter that provides an exploration of key issues in requirements engineering, the book is organized in three parts. Part 1 presents surveys of state-of-the art requirements engineering process research along with critical assessments of existing models, frameworks and techniques. Part 2 addresses key areas in requirements engineering, such as market-driven requirements engineering, goal modeling, requirements ambiguity, and others. Part 3 concludes the book with articles that present empirical evidence and experiences from practices in industrial projects. Its broader perspective gives this book its distinct appeal and makes it of interest to both researchers and practitioners, not only in software engineering but also in other disciplines such as business process engineering and management science.

In Software Requirements, you'll discover practical, effective techniques for managing the requirements engineering process all the way through the development cycle--including tools to facilitate that all-important communication between users, developers, and management. Use them to: Book jacket.

“We need better approaches to understanding and managing software requirements, and Dean provides them in this book. He draws ideas from three very useful intellectual pools: classical management practices, Agile methods, and lean product development. By combining the strengths of these three approaches, he has produced something that works better than any one in isolation.” –From the Foreword by Don Reinertsen, President of Reinertsen & Associates; author of Managing the Design Factory; and leading expert on rapid product development Effective requirements discovery and analysis is a critical best practice for serious application development. Until now, however, requirements and Agile methods have rarely coexisted peacefully. For many enterprises considering Agile approaches, the absence of effective and scalable Agile requirements processes has been a showstopper for Agile adoption. In Agile Software Requirements, Dean Leffingwell shows exactly how to create effective requirements in Agile environments. Part I presents the “big picture” of Agile requirements in the enterprise, and describes an overall process model for Agile requirements at the project team, program, and portfolio levels Part II describes a simple and lightweight, yet comprehensive model that Agile project teams can use to manage requirements Part III shows how to develop Agile requirements for complex systems that require the cooperation of multiple teams Part IV guides enterprises in developing Agile requirements for ever-larger “systems of systems,” application suites, and product portfolios This book will help you leverage the benefits of Agile without sacrificing the value of effective requirements discovery and analysis. You’ll find proven solutions you can apply right now–whether you’re a software developer or tester, executive, project/program manager, architect, or team leader.