Hi Joe. Great summary. It's helpful that you include references.
I've long been of the opinion that most requirements documentation (and the related decision churn and BS estimates that go along with it) can be avoided when people properly understand the practice of story writing and use cases — particularly when each of those are written like tests. For example:
The Connextra template for user stories (As a _, I want _, etc) is difficult to test. I prefer actionable statements like:
> A (type of user) CAN (do something).
Instead of something like: As a driver, I want to engage the cruise control.
I prefer: The driver can engage the cruise control.
The latter example is testable (they can or cannot engage the feature) whereas the former is a merely a statement of desire/preference.
Great feedback with that example Dave! I agree that direct structyred sentence is preferable. I was in an interview this week with a firm that really focuses on clarity and well written requirements versus dogmatic forms. It brought back to the beginning of the idea for use cases from very experienced, agile manifesto participants, not too mention the use cases I wrote for various customers in Toronto when the unified process and uml was the standard for rapid development. I appreciate your feedback and I appreciate you ;)
Hi Joe. Great summary. It's helpful that you include references.
I've long been of the opinion that most requirements documentation (and the related decision churn and BS estimates that go along with it) can be avoided when people properly understand the practice of story writing and use cases — particularly when each of those are written like tests. For example:
The Connextra template for user stories (As a _, I want _, etc) is difficult to test. I prefer actionable statements like:
> A (type of user) CAN (do something).
Instead of something like: As a driver, I want to engage the cruise control.
I prefer: The driver can engage the cruise control.
The latter example is testable (they can or cannot engage the feature) whereas the former is a merely a statement of desire/preference.
Great feedback with that example Dave! I agree that direct structyred sentence is preferable. I was in an interview this week with a firm that really focuses on clarity and well written requirements versus dogmatic forms. It brought back to the beginning of the idea for use cases from very experienced, agile manifesto participants, not too mention the use cases I wrote for various customers in Toronto when the unified process and uml was the standard for rapid development. I appreciate your feedback and I appreciate you ;)