REAL Requirements

Robin F. Goldsmith gets (registration required) it. Sorting through the maze of so-called business requirements, system requirements, functional specifications, and software requirements, he counsels us about what the REAL requirements are:

REAL requirements are business requirements, which are in business terms and are what must be delivered to provide value.

He then remarks that what many in the requirements community call "system", "software", or "product" requirements are in fact design:

System requirements represent a human-defined product or system which presumably is one of the possible ways presumably how to accomplish the presumed REAL business requirements. As such, system requirements actually are a form of high-level design.

Finally, Goldsmith tells us that failing to recognize that so-called system/software/product requirements are in fact design has practical negative consequences:

The primary reason products/systems don’t satisfy the REAL business requirements is because the REAL business requirements have not been defined adequately. In turn, the primary reason the REAL business requirements are not defined adequately is because conventional requirements models mislead people into believing that system requirements are the requirements and thus warrant all the attention.

Confusion over requirements concepts is not just a semantic or academic issue. Goldsmith recognizes that product development organizations are losing sight of what a product really must do and be to create value.

Comments

Why Spreadsheets Suck for Prioritizing

The Goal As a company executive, you want confidence that your product team (which includes all the people, from all departments, responsible for product success) has a sound basis for deciding which items are on the product roadmap. You also want confidence the team is prioritizing the items in a smart way. What Should We Prioritize? The items the team prioritizes could be features, user stories, epics, market problems, themes, or experiments. Melissa Perri makes an excellent case for a " problem roadmap ", and, in general, I recommend focusing on the latter types of items. However, the topic of what types of items you should prioritize - and in what situations - is interesting and important but beyond the scope of this blog entry. A Sad but Familiar Story If there is significant controversy about priorities, then almost inevitably, a product manager or other member of the team decides to put together The Spreadsheet. I've done it. Some of the mos

Interaction Design: the Neglected Skill

Your product development organization has a big, gaping hole in it. (Be prepared to feel defensive as you continue reading.) One of the most important roles in product development is the role of interaction designer. An interaction designer designs how the users will interact with the product and conceptualize the tasks they perform. He decides whether, for example, the user interface will be command driven, object oriented (clicking on objects then specifying what to do with them), or wizard based. The interaction designer decides the individual steps in the use cases. Every company has one or more people that play the interaction designer role. Usually, those people have little or no expertise in interaction design. Sadly, they typically don't even realize how unqualified they are. Let's see who typically plays the role at companies. Engineer . An engineer is an expert on building what is designed. Yes, an engineer may know how to design the internal structure of the hardware

Stop Validating and Start Falsifying

The product management and startup worlds are buzzing about the importance of "validation". In this entry, I'll explain how this idea originated and why it's leading organizations astray. Why Validate? In lean startup circles, you constantly hear about "validated learning" and "validating" product ideas: The assumption is that you have a great product idea and seek validation from customers before expending vast resources to build and bring it to market. Indeed, it makes sense to transcend conventional approaches to making product decisions . Intuition, sales anecdotes, feature requests from customers, backward industry thinking, and spreadsheets don't form the basis for sound product decisions. Incorporating lean startup concepts , and a more scientific approach to learning markets, is undoubtedly a sounder approach. Moreover, in larger organizations, sometimes further in the product life-cycle, everyone seems to have an opinio

Cauvin

Search This Blog