Tag: compliance and traceability

58% of Projects are at Risk due to Poor Requirements Management Tool Selection.

Over half of projects are using spreadsheets and word processing documents to manage their requirements they are taking a large risk.

OK, so the tool  poll was very small and not necessarily scientifically significant, but it does indicate that not everyone has seen the light. And it gives us some data to draw the nowadays ‘mandatory’ info graphic!

As a young student, I remember being introduced to ‘Office‘ applications on a special ‘visit’ to a college. We were shown a spreadsheet and a word-processor. During the hands on task we were all asked to write something. A fellow student completed their piece but couldn’t understand why their work preview looked different to everyone else’s. Whilst all the words were there they were spaced in an odd manner. They’d used the spreadsheet, and entered a word in each cell and changed the columns until the text fitted. Whilst this is laughable now, the fact is the tool still allowed the job to be completed, still allowed the brief to be met. However, the result, using the wrong tool, was not as useful. Imagine trying to cut and paste a sentence into the middle of an existing clause….

A requirements management tool is adapted to aid the flow of requirement through design to testing and end of life. Items are linked in the project’s chain, unlike a design attribute in one document, vaguely referring to some version of a requirement in another.

Would we suggest a Requirements Management tool is needed for all projects?

NO! We wouldn’t, which may sound surprising from a tool vendor. If you make cupcakes and you get an order for 24 cakes 12 blueberry and 12 chocolate we would suggest a spreadsheet with a sheet of costings and a sheet of orders is probably enough, even a diary with the order written in the day before collection day would suffice.  We really don’t want you to spend your money on an inappropriate tool. Spend it on some new icing nozzles and deliver us a batch of cakes. However, if you produce tens of thousands of cupcakes for a number of different vendors and have numerous suppliers, recipes and food standards to meet, well we could conceive of a Cupcake project as a set of Requirements and associated items that needed to be managed. Supplier X changes their ingredient, which products does this affect?

Away from food, before we all feel hungry, we can confidently say that YES the more complex your product, the more components, stakeholders, standards and tests you have to mange, the more important the right tool. The easier traceability becomes, the easier changes can be made and impact calculated. Don’t try laying bricks with a spade, just because you have one in the shed. Don’t try turning precision parts with a drill and a file just because it appears to work. Don’t try and write a novel in EMACS just because it is an extremely powerful text editor . DO use the right tools for the job,

Related Articles

Seeing the light, are you viewing your projects through rose coloured spectacles? Windows and Doors do they need RM (Requirements Management)?

Goal

If you don’t know where you are currently, or how you arrived or what your ultimate goal is, how do you know in which direction to head? Requirements Management is a skill made easier by the full traceability of tools such as Cradle.

Build Me a Home

Starting a project without having a base understanding of the situation is a like building a house on unstable foundations. When the walls start to wander you’ll have no idea whether it was because the foundations were not level or were inappropriate or whether the direction of the wall is simply wrong.

Not knowing the ultimate goal could lead to a double height wall being built for a bungalow.

If you have no measure of how high the wall currently stands, you’ll have no chance of estimating how long it will take to finish.

Baseline, Elicit  and Measure

It may sound obvious when applied to the ‘simple’ task of  building a home. It appears ridiculous to start building without knowing whether our goal is a bungalow, house or flat. Yet many projects start with a very loose understanding  between stakeholders and producers and can head off in the wrong direction.

Baseline

Do we know the current situation? Do the foundations exist, is this a single storey  build that needs extending with an upper floor or are we to start from scratch. Are there any assumptions we need to record, this project assumes that there bedrock will be found within a metre.

Elicit Requirements

Have we investigated what the customer / stakeholder actually wants? We could achieve the same m² with two storeys or one larger floor. No point building a house and then finding mobility restrictions mean a bungalow was needed. Do they actually need a house. The baseline may show they actually have somewhere to live and all they need is some more storage. We could provide them with a shed and achieve their goal. This honesty in not selling them a new house may mean we have a smaller turnover, but a far better reputation. This should lead to repeat and new business as knowledgeable supplier.

Measure

This needs to be done at each stage. Internally we need to know that we are meeting the design. When do we stop building the walls? Externally we need to know that the customer is going to be happy. Milestones and intermediate reviews will prevent big surprises at the end. Whilst we want to avoid requirements creep, we have no intention to build a mansion for the price of a flat, customer requirements change and to remain agile, we need to build in steps to accommodate change.

Summary

If you can see the sense in this simplistic example you have every justification you need to correctly control and manage your project. If you can’t see the point, you’re likely to return to your back of envelope calculations and assumptions of what your customer needs. Good luck to you, but we’d prefer you to take steps to de-risk your plans. Put yourself on the receiving end, a 20 storey building each with a floor of 1m*1m and a ladder pinned to the outside. It fulfils the requirements, but you try sleeping in your new bedsit.