James Robertson

Suzanne Robertson

"If the purpose is to create one of the best books on requirements yet written, the authors have succeeded." —Capers Jones It is widely recognized that incorrect requirements account for up to 60 percent of errors in software products, and yet the majority of software development organizations do not have a formal requirements process. Many organizations appear willing to spend huge amounts on fixing and altering poorly specified software, but seem unwilling to invest a much smaller amount to get the requirements right in the first place. Mastering the Requirements Process, Second Edition , sets out an industry-proven process for gathering and verifying requirements with an eye toward today's agile development environments. In this total update of the bestselling guide, the authors show how to discover precisely what the customer wants and needs while doing the minimum requirements work according to the project's level of agility. Features include The Volere requirements process—completely specified, and revised for compatibility with agile environments A specification template that can be used as the basis for your own requirements specifications New agility ratings 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 Iterative requirements gathering leading to faster delivery to the client Checklists to help identify stakeholders, users, nonfunctional requirements, and more Details on gathering and implementing requirements for iterative releases An expanded project sociology section for help with identifying and communicating with stakeholders Strategies for exploiting use cases to determine the best product to build Methods for reusing requirements and requirements patterns Examples showing how the techniques and templates are applied in real-world situations

Mastering the Requirements Process

Tom DeMarco

Tim Lister

Steve McMenamin

Peter Hruschka

This is the digital version of the printed book (Copyright © 2008). Adrenaline junkies, dead fish, project sluts, true believers, Lewis and Clark, template zombies . . . Most developers, testers, and managers on IT projects are pretty good at recognizing patterns of behavior and gut-level hunches, as in, “I sense that this project is headed for disaster.” But it has always been more difficult to transform these patterns and hunches into a usable form, something a team can debate, refine, and use. Until now. In Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies, the six principal consultants of The Atlantic Systems Guild present the patterns of behavior they most often observe at the dozens of IT firms they transform each year, around the world. The result is a quick-read guide to identifying nearly ninety typical scenarios, drawing on a combined one-hundred-and-fifty years of project management experience. Project by project, you’ll improve the accuracy of your hunches and your ability to act on them. The patterns are presented in an easy-reference format, with names designed to ease communication with your teammates. In just a few words, you can describe what’s happening on your project. Citing the patterns of behavior can help you quickly move those above and below you to the next step on your project. You’ll find classic patterns such as these: News Improvement Management by Mood Ring Piling On Rattle Yer Dags Natural Authority Food++ Fridge Door and more than eighty more! Not every pattern will be evident in your organization, and not every pattern is necessarily good or bad. However, you’ll find many patterns that will apply to your current and future assignments, even in the most ambiguous circumstances. When you assess your situation and follow your next hunch, you'll have the collective wisdom of six world-class consultants at your side.

Understanding Patterns of Project Behavior

Adrenaline Junkies and Template Zombies

Learn Analysis or Extend Your Skills with a Detailed Project and a Comprehensive Textbook In a fundamentally new approach, Complete Systems Analysis teaches everything you need to know about analyzing systems: the methods, the models, the techniques, and more. A definitive text on modern systems analysis techniques is combined with an extensive case study to give readers hands-on experience in completing an actual analysis project. Readers proceed through each step of a full-scale analysis project, analyzing the complex requirements of a television station's airtime programming department. Each phase of the case study and each exercise in the textbook section is thoroughly explained in separate review and answer sections. An innovative Trail Guide system--inspired by the difficulty levels marked on ski trails--encourages readers to follow a sequence that suits their skill level. Beginners follow the full trail while experienced analysts fill in gaps in their training, refresh their understanding of key concepts, and practice their skills. Managers review key concepts but can skip the detailed work with models. The book shows how analysis is used for object-oriented implementation, and how event-response data flow models and entity-relationship data models are complementary, not competing, models. Since its first publication in 1994 as a two-volume set in hardcover, this highly acclaimed text--released in 1998 as a single softcover volume--has served as a course text in classes throughout the world.

Complete Systems Analysis

Understand and Solve Your Customers’ Real Problems with Agile Business Analysis To deliver real value, you must understand what your customers truly value, and solve the problems they really need solved. Business analysis can help you do this—and it’s as crucial in agile environments now as it always has been. In Business Analysis Agility, leading experts James Robertson and Suzanne Robertson show how to perform business analysis in an agile way: trying new things, adapting to changes and discoveries, staying flexible, and being quick. Drawing on their unsurpassed experience of hundreds of projects and organizations, the Robertsons help you prioritize relentlessly, focus investments on delivering value, and learn in ways that improve your results. Uncover the real customer problems hidden behind assumptions and conventional solutions Hypothesize potential solutions and quickly test them with safe-to-fail probes Understand how people, hardware, software, organizations, and other components come together in an optimal customer experience Write stories that help you find solutions that deliver more value to customers and the business Think about problems and projects in more agile, nimble, and open-minded ways The Robertsons’ approach to analytical thinking will be valuable to anyone who wants to build better software in agile environments: analysts, developers, team leads, project managers, software architects, and other team members and stakeholders at all levels of experience.

Solve the Real Problem, Deliver Real Value

Business Analysis Agility

In her first collection of poems, Suzanne Robertson meditates on the nature of intimacy; the connective tissue that binds stranger to stranger, human to animal, soul to landscape, heart to mind. Inspired by the Buddhist paramitas ? actions that spark a spiritual sojourn, the poems attempt to both transcend and stay grounded in a conventional universe. Follow the humourous, pedestrian plight of a secretary/writer grappling with her noonday demon, her love affair with Little Black, and the metamorphosis of her marriage as she harnesses the practical power of poetry, marrying words "to the wind horse," "to the lies and the gossip and the truth of the river / as it pours out the mouth of right-now." Paramita, Little Black explores acts of transformation; documenting a journey to live and love authentically amidst the transient anatomy of our twenty-first century lives.

Paramita, Little Black

Steven McMenamin

Understanding and Improving the Culture at Work

Happy to Work Here

This is the digital version of the printed book (Copyright © 1998, 1994). In a fundamentally new approach, Complete Systems Analysis teaches everything you need to know about analyzing systems: the methods, the models, the techniques, and more. A definitive text on modern systems analysis techniques is combined with an extensive case study to give readers hands-on experience in completing an actual analysis project. Readers proceed through each step of a full-scale analysis project, analyzing the complex requirements of a television station’s airtime programming department. Each phase of the case study and each exercise in the textbook section is thoroughly explained in separate review and answer sections. An innovative Trail Guide system–inspired by the difficulty levels marked on ski trails–encourages readers to follow a sequence that suits their skill level. Beginners follow the full trail while experienced analysts fill in gaps in their training, refresh their understanding of key concepts, and practice their skills. Managers review key concepts but can skip the detailed work with models. The book shows how analysis is used for object-oriented implementation, and how event-response data flow models and entity-relationship data models are complementary, not competing, models. Complete Systems Analysis adapts to the reader’s needs and provides an appropriate learning path for the beginner, with a more direct route for experienced analysts wanting to make better use of today’s techniques. Since its initial publication in 1994 as a two-volume set in hardcover, this highly acclaimed text–released in 1998 as a single, softcover volume–has served as a course text in classes throughout the world. Topics include Analysis Models Data Flow Diagrams Data Viewpoint Data Models Leveled Data Flow Diagrams Current Physical Viewpoint Building the Data Dictionary Strategy: Focusing on the Essentials Identifying Events Modeling an Event Response Writing Mini Specifications CRUD Check Modeling New Requirements New Physical Viewpoint Object-Oriented Viewpoint Strategy: Toward Implementation

The Workbook, the Textbook, the Answers

In their previous book, Mastering the Requirements Process, the Robertsons defined Volere - their widely adopted requirements process. In this second book, they look at the outputs from the requirements process and demonstrate how you can take advantage of the all-important links between requirements and project success.

Suzanne Robertson

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