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Requirements Discipline: Avoiding “Death by a Thousand Paper Cuts" Absent an effective requirements baseline it is difficult to distinguish clarifications and error correction from enhancements and changes to the original ask. |
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What’s the Problem with User Stories? Agile projects focus on very lightweight, simple requirements embodied in user stories. However, there are some problems with relying solely on user stories. They often don't contain enough accuracy for development, testing, or industry regulations. There's a better way to write detailed requirements that are still agile. |
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How to Make a Fixed-Scope Contract More Agile Establishing a contract that genuinely supports agile methods can be a significant challenge. By its very nature, a contract that specifies detailed, upfront deliverables contravenes the principles of flexibility and adaptation that are at the heart of agile. But it is possible—both parties just need to focus on results. |
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Making (and Keeping) Project Risk Visible Project managers recommend how much should be invested to address various risks based on their understanding of project context, but the final decision about what to do and when those efforts are sufficient belongs to the sponsor. Risk management requires executive input, so sponsors need to see all risk data you have. |
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The Curse of Rushed Requirements When development is outsourced, a documented baseline of expected functionality sets expectations for both the client and developer. Acknowledging that agile practices are flexible, beware the trap of rushing requirements just because you know they are going to change. It's still essential to be as accurate as you can. |
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Trusting Your Data: Garbage In, Garbage Out Poor quality input will always produce faulty output. Improper validation of data input can affect more than just security; it can also affect your ability to make effective business decisions. Bad data can have impacts on how you make quantitative decisions or create reports, if you can’t trust the data you receive. |
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Getting Support for the Tests You Need Done It’s often hard for teams to get sufficient time and resources for the amount and quality of tests they think are needed. It’s like management wants testing done but at the same time doesn’t want to commit what’s needed to do it. If that's your case, look at the business side, rank priorities, and negotiate resources. |
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How to Talk to Executives about Agile In the agile community, executives tend to get a bad name. They are accused of not understanding agile and the benefits it will bring their companies. But we just need to speak the same language: Look beyond the surface-level reasons for resistance and try to identify the financial grounds. Just follow the money! |
