Value Transforming Blog

In an earlier blog post, we compared the WBS Dictionary to the Agile Definition of Done. However, we never reviewed any connection between conventional project management Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) and the decomposition of the product backlog to produce the sprint backlog.  Before we can describe what completion of the item looks like, we must first […]

August 19, 2016

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I was exploring twitter as I sometimes do in the morning when I came upon this interesting post.  It is true, to paraphrase Rudyard Kipling, waterfall is waterfall and agile is agile, and never the twain shall meet[1].  So?   The goal of any project is to successfully deliver the objectives of that project and […]

August 17, 2016

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This may or may not be a true story, but I promise it happens every year.  We start with the customer organization and a supplier that the customer refers to as a partner supplier. This “partner” supplier collaborates with the customer to develop custom components for a larger system the customer sells to their customers. […]

August 16, 2016

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Requirements and Benchmarking One of the things we can do to understand and develop our own requirements is to explore other products that are similar to our proposed product or that solve the same or similar customer problem.  Where there are similar needs met, benchmarking is a way for us to understand how other suppliers have […]

August 10, 2016

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There are a number of factors that can influence the approach we take to managing the requirements.  I provide a brief list below (this is not an exhaustive list): the technical sophistication of the product the risk associated with a mistake distribution of the team The more technically complicated the product the more diligent our […]

August 8, 2016

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I have long had an affinity for nature, having camped with my family when I was a child.  For years, I have been visiting Gatlinburg Tennessee. For someone who has spent much of his time in North Carolina, it is sad that I found this place accidentally when my wife won a three-day trip.  Since […]

August 3, 2016

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State diagrams can also help us develop the requirements and consider software and hardware requirements that may not be so easily evoked from the customer.  The state diagram describes the behavior or the software / system, specifically the number of states in which the product may be.  There will be transitions between states defined by […]

August 3, 2016

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Scope, Requirements, and Work Breakdown Structure The scope of the work and the requirements provide us with information from which we can build the Work Breakdown Structure or WBS.  In fact, even before we are able to start doing the work to build the expected results of the project, our work breakdown structure should capture […]

July 30, 2016

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I have spent considerable time in the south, specifically North Carolina.  My dad was retired Special Forces and closed out his career at FortBragg (we lived in SpringLake).  Those not from the south, or have not spent much time here, may not know about sweet iced tea.  Sweet tea is a wonderfully refreshing concoction, especially […]

July 29, 2016

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I was thinking about technical debt in the context of our recent spate of requirements postings on the blog.  Technical debt, from my perspective, does not just apply to software.  We incur technical debt when we implement an easy solution in the short run, as opposed to the best overall solution.  In other words, we […]

July 27, 2016

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