Estimating Non-Functional Requirements is like Taxes
Mike Cohn is asked frequently about the unique challenges of estimating non-functional requirements. This week his response to this popular question is a good one to share with you.
He reminds us that a non-functional requirement is a requirement that is more about the state of being of the system than about one specific thing the system does. And yes, they can be written as user stories.
Non-functional requirements often have to do with performance, correctness, maintainability, interoperability, portability, and so on. They are often called the “-ilities” of a system because so many end in “ility.”
The challenge with estimating non-functional requirements is that there are really two costs.
- The cost of initial compliance
- The cost of ongoing compliance.
To see these two costs at work – Let’s consider an example
WEBINAR – Sharing the Secret Sauce: Lessons from a Business Analysis Mentor (5/26)
May 26, 2011 (11 – 12pm EDT)
Many folks agree on the basic practices and techniques commonly used to analyze requirements. But what about the special ingredients needed to deliver valuable, holistic, timely requirements?
In this webinar, requirements expert Mary Gorman highlights lessons learned from 20 years of business analysis mentoring and shares practical ideas that will help you take your analysis skills to a higher level.
Presenter: Mary Gorman, CBAP, CSM, and VP of quality & delivery at EBG Consulting helps business and technical teams collaborate to deliver products your customers value and need. Read more
NEW WEBINAR RECORDING – Agile Requirements Management: When User Stories Are Not Enough
User Stories are all that is needed for requirements management on simple projects, or where requirements are not well understood. However, when dealing with complex software products that have significant existing functionality, or when regulations or customers mandate a requirements-driven development process, then User Stories are not enough.
Traditional requirements practices are good at managing dependencies, visualizing the big picture for the overall product, and analyzing the impact of changes. User Stories are good mechanisms for pull-based incremental development. This presentation, by Colin Doyle of MKS, will show how blending both practices so that high level requirements engineering drives the development and maintenance of the Agile product backlog can ensure success with complex software product development.
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WEBINAR – Building the Product Backlog (3/25)
March 25, 2011 (11-12pm PST)
Building and maintaining a Product Backlog can be a time-consuming effort. Though the Product Owner has final say in the prioritization, a good product backlog is a result of a combined effort of the Product Owner, Scrum team, ScrumMaster and stakeholders.
In this webinar you will learn techniques and ideas for the entire lifecycle of backlog management and how each of the Scrum roles, as well as stakeholders, can contribute to its overall effectiveness.
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NEW RECORDING – Splitting User Stories
User Stories have become the bread and butter specifications for an Agile team, yet it is difficult to know how to do a good job of sizing them. In this Webinar we will answer some questions:
- Why split stories?
- Why will this make the team go faster?
- Why is splitting stories by architectural component bad?
- What is a better way of splitting user stories?
We will start with a quick review of what user stories are and then learn why large stories often limit your team’s progress. Then we will learn how to split them. Along with some examples in the presentation you’re invited to come prepared with your own user stories and we will see if we can help you split a few on the fly.
WEBINAR – Prioritizing Project Portfolios using Innovation Games (11/30)
November 30, 2010 (9-10 am PST, 12-1 pm EST)
Portfolio Prioritization is a critical aspect of project work. In this interactive session, serious gaming expert Luke Hohmann will present the Innovation Games Prune the Product (Portfolio) Tree and Buy a Feature (Project) — two new approaches to prioritizing project portfolios.
Based on principles and learning’s from cognitive psychology and organizational behavior, these collaborative, serious games, enable small, co-located teams, or larger, distributed teams, to efficiently prioritize project portfolios.
HOST: 
PMI’s Agile Community of Practice.
SPEAKER: Luke Hohmann is the Founder and CEO of The Innovation Games Company, the leading provider of serious games that enable organizations to solve complex problems through online and in-person collaborative play. The author of three books, Luke’s playfully diverse background of life experiences has uniquely prepared him to design and produce serious games. Luke graduated magna cum laude with a B.S.E. in computer engineering and an M.S.E. in computer science and engineering from the University of Michigan. In addition to data structures and artificial intelligence, he studied cognitive psychology and organizational behavior. He is also a former National Junior Pairs Figure Skating Champion, as well as a certified aerobics instructor. In his spare time, Luke likes roughhousing with his four kids and his wife’s cooking. He also enjoys long runs in the Santa Cruz mountains to burn off his wife’s cooking. Luke’s a bit of an old school Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Instead of building a company to flip, he’s building a company to change the world. You can join him by playing games at Games for Democracy.
PDU: 1
COST: Free
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NEW WEBINAR RECORDING – Active Requirement Gathering
Building highly innovative products that are both engaging and valuable (think iPhone, Kindle, Facebook) require deep knowledge about our customer’s world. Although Agile development has been successful in the construction of products it is very thin on the requirements gathering process. Our industry needs Agile methodologies for gaining deep domain knowledge by collaboratively working with our customers in their world. I will be speaking about some collaborative tools for gathering rich requirements that fit nicely with the agile development process.
YOU WILL LEARN ABOUT:
- Tools for gaining a deeper understanding of your customer’s world and uncovering hidden opportunities
- Techniques for leading effective customer feedback sessions
- Tools for efficiently prioritizing product backlog
- Methods for bridging the gap between requirements and construction.
- How all the above fit within an Agile environment
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SPEAKER: Armond Mehrabian is a Lean-Agile Consultant/Coach, Software Engineering Manager and Principal Software Engineer with over 22 years of experience. He founded Portofino Solutions, Inc., offering consultancy and training in software development process and project management – helping companies adopt and improve their use of Agile product development processes in order to build high performance organizations. He is also a Certified ScrumMaster, PMP, IGC, and MCP — working many industries including Computer Hardware/Software, Electrical Utility, Auto Insurance, Financial and IT — with clients such as Sempra Energy, Boein, SAIC, Audatex, Invensys and Kofax.
PDU: 1
COST: Free
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NEW WEBINAR RECORDING – Agile Requirements: Not an Oxymoron
Misconceptions abound about how agile projects analyze and develop requirements. In practice, requirements are the basis for planning, developing and delivering agile projects.
Agile requirements are congruent– they combine to form a sound and sensible union that drives successful delivery of business value.
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YOU WILL LEARN:
- The agile method of developing requirements and how ‘traditional’ requirements practices are adapted on agile projects
- The value of requirements analysis on agile projects
- Ways in which requirement form the basis for planning on agile projects
- How effective agile teams collaborate around requirements
PDU: 1
COST: Free
SPEAKER: Ellen Gottesdiener, Principal Consultant and Founder of EBG Consulting, Inc., helps business and technical teams collaborate to define and deliver products customers value and needs. Ellen is an internationally recognized facilitator, coach, trainer, author, speaker, and expert on requirements development, product chartering, retrospectives, agile requirements, and collaborative workshops.
She is the author of two acclaimed books (Requirements by Collaboration and The Software Requirements Memory Jogger), Ellen speaks at industry conferences; writes articles, blogs, and tweets; and is an IIBA (BABOK®) expert reviewer and contributor to the (in progress) agile-BABOK addendum.
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WHITEPAPER – Agile Requirements is Not an Oxymoron
Adult children. Jumbo shrimp. Seriously funny. I’m sure you recognize these expressions as oxymorons—self-contradictory phrases, often with an ironic meaning.
Should we add “agile requirements” to the list? Does agile development fit in with traditional requirements practices? And if so, how?
Once More into the Breach
Traditionally, defining requirements involves careful analysis and documentation and checking and rechecking for understanding. It’s a disciplined approach backed by documentation, including models and specifications. For many organizations, this means weeks or months of analysis, minimal cross-team collaboration, and reams of documentation.
In contrast, agile practices—Lean, Scrum, XP, FDD, Crystal, and so on—involve understanding small slices of requirements and developing them with an eye toward using tests as truth. You confirm customers’ needs by showing them delivered snippets of software.
But agile projects still produce requirements and documentation, and they involve plenty of analysis. On the best agile projects, requirements practices combine discipline, rigor, and analysis with speed, adaptation, and collaboration. Because software development is a knotty “wicked problem” with evolving requirements, using iterative and agile practices is not only common sense but also economically desirable.
Indeed, agile requirements drive identifying and delivering value during agile planning, development, and delivery.
Planning
Agile teams base product requirements on their business value—for example, boosting revenue, cutting costs, improving services, complying with regulatory constraints, and meeting market goals. If you’re agile, it means that you focus on value and jettison anything in the product or process that’s not valuable.
NEW VIDEO – Product Discovery using Lean Thinking (with Jeff Patton)
Think of a product you love, one you’d recommend to a friend. What makes the product valuable? While I’m not a mind reader, I’m confident you weren’t thinking: “lack of bugs” or “time to market.” The most difficult part isn’t delivery, but the discovery of products that are truly valuable to the people that use them. Jeff Patton explores applying Lean thinking to product discovery.
Find out how “Discovery finds problems to solve and the shape of solutions”
SPEAKER: Jeff Patton has focused on Agile approaches since working on an early XP team in 2000. In particular Jeff has specialized in the application of user centered design techniques to improve Agile requirements, planning, and products. Jeff is a winner of the Agile Alliance’s 2007 Gordon Pask Award.
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Let’s Connect!
My Speaking Engagements …..
-Nov 10: HOW TO PLAN, MANAGE, and TRACK ITERATIONS (ProjectTimes) -Dec 16: DEALING WITH THE TOP 10 ISSUES DURING & AFTER AN ITERATION (ProjectTimes) -Jan 13: AGILE REQUIREMENT GATHERING & DOCUMENTATION - BEYOND USER STORIES (ProjectTimes) -Feb 10: DEALING WITH THE TOP 10 ISSUES IN AGILE ADOPTION (ProjectTimes) Some Agile User-Groups and Links…
