Series: Part 2 – Logic Mountains & the Avalanche of Must Haves
It’s easy to accumulate undeliverable requirements. These are some ideas on escaping requirement bloat using discovery engagement, deferral, and strategic cutting out of solution parts.
Part 2.0 – Logic mountains & the avalanche of must haves
Requirements gathering makes total sense – especially when you sit in with a group of stakeholders and you talk about what you collectively agree you need. Every requirement, every feature, all seem very logical in the “heat” of the moment of that meeting (although many wouldn’t describe requirements meetings as “hot” 😴…). All the bells…
Part 2.1 – Talk to the user
How can you reduce the size of the mountain? Let the user’s voice take out some of the options that the team has come up with. It is very easy to spend hours debating one function, but a 5 min conversation with a few users can simply remove a whole bunch of debated functions. Or…
Part 2.2- Delay, delay, delay
One of the principles of Agile is that you welcome change, and this has a real benefit when looking at trying to reduce the number of requirements. If you want to be flexible, and you want to save time, then every detailed requirement you don’t spend time on initially gives you some time back. It…
Part 2.3 – Collective Memory is short
So, you’ve just spent three months creating a mountain of requirements. However, you have started to notice that you are now tiptoeing around, not disturbing the requirements in case there is an avalanche of stakeholder outrage – “how dare you remove that button” they say! Another three months pass, and you start showing people what…