Team Skill 3 – Organizing Requirements & Team Skill 3 – Organizing Requirements & Product ManagementProduct Management

(Chapters 15-17 of the requirements text(Chapters 15-17 of the requirements text))

Sriram Mohan/Steve Chenoweth

RHIT

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OutlineOutline Organizing Requirements Vision Document Product Management

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Organizing RequirementsOrganizing Requirements

Why should we organize requirements? Requirements are rarely captured in a single document.

Why?◦ Complex systems

◦ Families of products

◦ Marketing and business goals

◦ Legal and other extraneous requirements

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Complex SystemsComplex Systems

Dividing requirements for complex systems into subsystems

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Product FamiliesProduct Families

A series of products with closely related requirements A new way of viewing software products

◦ Investing in infrastructure to build product families

◦ Commonality analysis – used to determine if use of a product line will be beneficial

A typical strategy – 2 layers of development◦ One “Platform” and many “Application” groups

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Example FamiliesExample Families

Toyota automobiles and trucks◦ A single “chassis” supports many “models” in a “family”

IBM 360/370 computers◦ The 370-158 and 370-168 were built out of much of the

same hardware, from boxes to chips. Software?

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OutlineOutline

Organizing Requirements Vision Document Product Management

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Let’s start with some vision…Let’s start with some vision…

Do it first,

Then the “lessons” might sound familiar…

Get out a blank sheet of paper and something to write with. Put your name on it.

In 1 minute, verbally sketch your beliefs about the “story” shown at right – 2 years from now – What did it become?

Pass it to your left In 1 min, write your reaction to

what you see written Return it to the author

…From a project description in 371/372 last year.

“This project would enable a user to share the real-time contents and actions of their computer screen with any remote user or group of users… ”

PurposePurpose

Comprehensive description of the product High level abstraction of the problem and the solution. Provides “common goals and a common playbook.” Internal to the development organization

◦ Includes “why this is good for us to do”◦ Like, “It will lead to a new general product”

Describes the plan for future releases

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Vision Document TemplateVision Document Template

• Introduction• User Description• Product Overview• Feature Attributes• Product Features• Use Cases• Supplementary Specifications• Documentation Requirements• Glossary

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Changing RequirementsChanging Requirements

How do you handle changing requirements in a vision document?◦ Delta vision

Includes things that have changed and contextual information

Legacy Systems

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OutlineOutline

Organizing Requirements Vision Document Product Management

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RationaleRationale

Every project needs an individual champion or a small champion team to advocate for the product.

The product manager drives the whole product solution: the application itself, support, user conveniences, documentation, and the relevant commercial factors.

Every project is driven off its funding -- Usually, the product manager is an internal “client” who hands out the money for internally sponsored projects

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TasksTasks The Product Manager does high-level tasks –

◦ Listens to all the stakeholders◦ Negotiates amongst them◦ Manages and funds project people◦ Communicates features and releases to the outside world◦ Advocates the product to everyone◦ “Owns” the vision statement!

“to help software teams build products that customers want to buy”

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Driving the Product VisionDriving the Product Vision

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Where the Product Manager fits…

An example – p. 187

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

Maintaining the Road MapMaintaining the Road Map

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Product PlanProduct Plan

Product Services and support Commercial terms Positioning

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PositioningPositioning

Position Statement

Branding

Nice demo of the product

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For (target customer)

Who Statement of need

The(product name) Is a (product category)

That Statement of key benefit

Unlike Rival product

Our product A list of differences