One under or ineffectively used tool is the specification or requirements review, which is a form of design review. In this case we are reviewing the design while it is still easy and cheap to make adjustments. Experience suggests, if we do not just forget to do this activity, it is a hastily arranged activity […]
The initial product requirements provide the product baseline. Our project planning will be focused upon delivering meeting these requirements. In a phased development process, we will prioritize the requirements (shown earlier) and deliver iterations. This staged delivery allows us to gain additional insight into the product. We may learn things that necessitate changes to the […]
We now have linked our scope through to the various levels of requirements. We are then able to prioritize the delivery of the various project obligations. The prioritization may be based, for example upon: Technical need Customer need Regulatory requirements Complexity and Risk Technical needs are the dependencies to getting the product features working, for […]
This may sound difficult, but there are some rules for good requirements. According to the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE http://www.incose.org/chicagoland/docs/Writing%20Effective%20Requirements.pdf), requirements should have the attributes below (similarly can be found at IEEE): Necessary – driven by the objective of the project and business Verifiable – ability to objectively confirmed that the requirement is […]
So how do we ensure we get meaningful requirements? We have a number of ways to understand our objective and learning about the Interviews customer clinics Simulation Digital mock ups Prototype physical mock ups Instrumentation Other information gathering (standards, regulations, etc.) We start with interviews of customers, stakeholders and project sponsors. Interviews also include customer […]
Requirements are fundamental to project success as the scope definition. Additionally, there are dependencies that impact the ability to produce suitable requirements. A few of those things are: Well defined scope of the work Sponsor and customer involvement Capability of the requirements authors Prioritized functions or abilities The needs or objectives of the customers or […]
“Scaffolding” is a term often used in education, but in our experience, rarely followed to a significant extent. Scaffolding allows us to grow a student in capability by starting easily and providing progressively more intricate and involved exercises. This approach actualizes Lev Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development. When training clients, we must […]
We have seen the word “layoff” used during a reduction in force. A reduction in force is a mass firing, often engendered by management ineptitude but sometimes driven by market forces. A layoff occurs when we temporarily dismiss an employee, but we provide preferential treatment for them when the market bounces back. Even with the […]
There are a number of quality tools that can help to evoke the risks that may be associated with your project. One such tool usually associated with cause and effect is the Ishikawa diagram. We can use this tool to explore risks as well. We will explore what happens (cause) and how it will impact […]
We can use value analysis and value engineering techniques to improve our product cost structure and ultimately our value proposition. The analysis phase of this activity is called value analysis. The design phase of this activity is called value engineering. We are a bit constrained during these activities since as we have a product already […]