Requirements and Estimating Scotch on the Rocks

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Requirements andEstimatingScotch on the Rocks
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• Peter Bell
• SystemsForge

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Overview

• Who am I?
• Development Process
• Setting Expectations
• Intent Driven Design
• Managing Risk
• Simplifying Specifications

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Who Am I?

• Programmer - 50-80 projects/yr.
• Entrepreneur - Profitable/practical
• Writer - CFDJ, Fusion Authority Quarterly, Flex
  Authority
• Presenter - SoTR 2007/8, cf.objective() 2006/8,
  CF United 2007/8, Frameworks, Webmaniacs, Code
  Generation 2007/8, ooPSLA, Domain Specific
  Modeling Forum, CFCamps . . .

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Development Process

• Discovery
• Development
• Refinement
• May be iterative . . .

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Setting Expectations

• Fixed bid
• Build system agreed
• NOT solve business problem

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Intent Driven Design

• Proven process
• Best practices
• Focus on the why
• Traceability
• Manage expectations/risk

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Intent Driven Design

• Business Intent
• Audiences
• Objectives
• User Stories
• Use Cases

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IDD Business Intent
WHY Bother?!

• Examples
• Cut number of support calls
• Generate more leads for a new service

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IDD Audiences/Roles

• Who will use?
• Functional roles
• User can have multiple roles

• Examples
• Visitor, Site Admin, New Prospect, Returning
  Customer, etc.

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IDD Objectives

• What do THEY want?
• Help them to get what they want . . .
• Consistent with your business intent

• Examples
• Get short list of vendors
• Check order status 24/7
• Update home page content

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IDD User Stories

• As a ROLE
• I want FEATURE
• so that BENEFIT

• Example
• As a CUSTOMER
• I want a ORDER STATUS DISPLAY
• so I can CHECK ORDER STATUS ANY TIME

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IDD Use Cases

• Screens
• Actions
• Steps
• Default, alternate and error paths

• Example Default Path
• Login screen
• processLogin action
• getUserOrderList action
• MyAccountOrderList screen
• getOrderDetail action
• OrderDetail screen

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IDD Summary

• Business Intent Why Bother?
• Audiences Who use?
• Objectives What want?
• User Stories
• As a ROLE I want FEATURE so that BENEFIT
• Use Cases
• Screens, actions and steps
• Default, alternate and error paths

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Managing Risk

• Four types of features
• Dealing with Dark Matter
• Anything within spec
• Expectation of Revisions

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Four Types of Features

• Rocket Science
• Lab Experiment
• New to you
• With a twist

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Dealing with Dark Matter

• What you dont know ALWAYS hurts you
• Nothing is obvious
• Fixed bid for system - not solution
• Not specified not included

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ANYTHING Within the Spec
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Expectation of Revisions

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Simplifying Specifications

• Re-usable specs
• Configuration systems
• Bounded (settings/wizard)
• Unbounded (DSLs)

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Key Recommendations

• Set Expectations
• Pick a Methodology
• Manage Risk
• Reuse Specifications

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Questions?

• Blog
• www.pbell.com
• Email
• peter_at_pbell.com
• Yahoo
• freshstartsw