Creating a Culture That Respects Requirements
Requirements serve as the foundation for all the project work that follows. Project teams and customers need to take requirements seriously.
The leader of a corporate requirements organization once posed a question to me. “I’m experiencing issues in gaining agreement from some of our developers to participate in requirements development,” she said. “Can you please direct me to any documentation available on how developers should be engaged in the requirements process so I can help them understand the value of their participation?”
In another organization, a business analyst (BA) experienced a clash between developers seeking detailed input for an accounting system and an IT manager who simply wanted to brainstorm requirements without using any specific elicitation techniques. “Do readers of your book risk cultural conflict?” this BA asked me.
These questions illustrate the challenges that can arise when trying to engage BAs, developers, customers, and managers in a collaborative requirements partnership. You’d think it would be obvious to users that providing requirements input makes it more likely that they’ll get what they need. Developers ought to recognize that participating in the process will make their lives easier…
