Requirements-Led Project Management : Discovering David's Slingshot |
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| Suzanne Robertson, James Robertson |
| August 2004, Addison-Wesley Pub Co, Hardcover, 352 pages, ISBN 0321180623
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| The book references some requirements-gathering techniques. We are
not attempting to tell you how to perform these; we assume you already
have some familiarity with them. When we talk about the requirements
activities, we do so in light of how they contribute to project management,
and project success. This book is about how to make better use of
requirements and how to use the products of requirements as a management
tool that contributes to project success. During the course
of this book we will show you
- How a quick cycle time can deliver more appropriate products.
- The most effective requirements process for your project.
- How to use the requirements as a way of discovering stakeholders
and managing their involvement.
- The best way of progressively prioritizing requirements and
managing expectations.
- How you can quantify customer value and concentrate on satisfying
the most valuable requirements.
- How to manage requirements across multi-domain/scope/technology
projects.
- How you can measure and communicate requirements progress.
- How you can use requirements as input to project management
planning and decision making.
- How you can use requirements to communicate across business
and technological boundaries.
The book also has insights for business analysts. However, it
is neither an introductory book nor a techniques book. Our previous
effort, Mastering the Requirements Process, is recommended if you
are looking for a "how to" book on requirements analysis.
In this book we are looking beyond the technicalities of the requirements
process to justify the effort needed to discover requirements, to
show how to get stakeholder commitment, to measure the effort needed,
and to show you how to exploit the all-important links between requirements
and project success.
Our intention is to provide practical ways of using requirements
to contribute to your project's success. We feel we will have succeeded
if your next project runs a lot more smoothly, your communication
with stakeholders is more effective, you can react more quickly
to changes, you can quantify the improvements, and you enjoy it
more.
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1 Requirements and project success 1
2 Requirements value 21
3 Project sociology 45
4 Learning what people need 79
5 Inventing requirements 113
6 Requirements simulations 135
7 Requirements for existing systems 163
8 Measuring requirements 183
9 Managing the requirements 207
10 Requirements meta-management 243
11 Your requirements process 255
App. A Requirements knowledge model 289
App. B Volere requirements specification template 301 |
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| Requirements are a crucial ingredient of any successful project.
This is true for any product--software, hardware, consumer appliance,
or large-scale construction. You have to understand its requirements--what
is needed and desired--if you are to build the right product. Most
developers recognize the truth in this statement, even if they don't
always live up to it.
Far less obvious, however, is the contribution that the requirements
activity makes to project management. Requirements, along with other
outputs from the requirements activity, are potent project management
tools.
In Requirements-Led Project Management, Suzanne and James Robertson
show how to use requirements to manage the development lifecycle.
They show program managers, product and project managers, team leaders,
and business analysts specifically how to:
- Use requirements as input to project planning and decision-making
- Determine whether to invest in a project
- Deliver more appropriate products with a quick cycle time
- Measure and estimate the requirements effort
- Define the most effective requirements process for a project
- Manage stakeholder involvement and expectations
- Set requirements priorities
- Manage requirements across multiple domains and technologies
- Use requirements to communicate across business and technological
boundaries
In their previous book, Mastering the Requirements Process, the
Robertsons defined Volere--their groundbreaking and now 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.
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