• We perform professional services for our clients, which usually involves some type of software development. The end result of this relationship is that the client is happy and we are paid.
• In order to secure both happiness and payment, our clients wants to see results from an acceptance test to verify that the software is functioning correctly.
• The acceptance test is based upon use cases and requirements identified in a requirements gathering phase.
• Missing or poor requirements leads to incorrect software design and implementation, an absent or spotty acceptance test, and ultimately to unhappy clients and potentially lack of payment.

Since unhappy clients and lack of payment are to be avoided like the plague, it is in everybody’s best interests to spend time refining requirements and use cases. The client can sharpen and clarify their vision, the development team can create a design that satisfies the requirements, and the test team can base their test cases directly upon the use cases.

So why do so many people resist defining requirements? There are as many reasons as there are stakeholders in a project. Some people worry about defining project scope too early. Some people have not been trained with requirements gathering techniques and feel uncomfortable using them. Some people think that requirements gathering (and possibly project planning) are extraneous activities that take away from the real work to be done.

Regardless of the specific reasons for resistance, the fact remains that the resistance is real, and the amount of that resistance will vary based upon the composition of a project team. Our job as consultants, and possibly your job as well in the role of requirements gatherer, is to gently overcome that resistance and lead the team towards consensus regarding the requirements and use cases.

There are many good books that have been written regarding requirements and use cases. Software Requirements by Karl Wiegers is a favorite for requirements gathering. For use cases, three books stand out in our eyes: Use Cases: Requirements in Context by Daryl Kulak and Eamonn Guiney, Writing Effective Use Cases by Alistair Cockburn, and Advanced Use Case Modeling: Software Systems by Frank Armour and Granville Miller. All of these books contain excellent treatments of the subject.

Some readers may have noticed that we listed three use case books and one requirements book. The reason for that is simple: it is easier to engage a project team by employing use cases to directly describe system behavior than it is to break down that system behavior into arbitrarily-scoped functional requirements. The marketing component of the project team is happier, as their vision has been directly translated into use cases. The testing component of the project team is happier, as the basis for the bulk of their test cases has been outlined in the set of use cases. Depending upon the design methodology chosen for the project, the development team may or may not be happier, as there is some translation that must be undertaken to map use cases and functional requirements to an object-oriented design.

Individual requirements still have their place, because not all requirements can be captured within the structure of a use case. Specifically, nonfunctional requirements and design constraints, such as internationalization, choice of programming language, supported communication protocols, and the like, must still be captured. Typically these types of requirements and constraints are “well-known”, and small in the scope of the requirements gathering effort (although they may not be small in the scope of the implementation effort).

When you are planning your next project, we’d recommend that you consider whether your team’s time and energy is better spent breaking system behavior into arbitrarily-scoped functional requirements, or whether it is more efficient to simply dive right into use cases and directly describe how the system operates. We’ve found use cases to be the easiest way to engage a team, and using this approach, our consultants can provide value to our clients on day one.

“nFocal’s new website was designed to provide current and prospective clients with specific information that is relevant to their needs,” says Steve Kapp, President of nFocal. “Our previous web site had many more pages and was not organized around our central themes, including product acceleration, change control, and predictable schedules. The new web site is much simpler and directly reflects our core values. In addition, our blogging content is now present in the new web site.”

The redesigned web site was developed by IDS Consulting, a leading provider of web site design services for small- and medium-sized businesses. “IDS Consulting did a fantastic job helping us to focus the message of the web site,” says Mr. Kapp. “IDS worked closely with our staff, and the end result is a web site that carries a consistent message and is visually stunning.”

About nFocal Inc:

nFocal Inc. is a professional services company that works with our clients’ internal product development teams, both large and small, to deliver products to market, on time and on budget. nFocal has four areas of concentration. Our Systems Engineering services draw upon our extensive experience with standard requirements and use case gathering and analysis, requirements management tools, and requirements-based testing to guide your development program in the right direction. Our Software Architecture services allow your product to be built upon a solid foundation that will both satisfy all of today’s requirements and permit your product to grow and evolve. Our Application Development services build applications for your product by connecting it to humans via user interfaces, and other devices via communications protocols. Our Machine to Machine (M2M) services bring your devices into the larger networked world and facilitate integrations with service organizations and other business partners. nFocal has worked on dozens of M2M projects, and has wide experience with various M2M toolkits.

For more information about nFocal and their services, visit the brand new site at www.nfocal.com.

About IDS Consulting:

IDS Consulting is a Rochester-based company specializing in web site design and hosting for small businesses. IDS Consulting always provides personalized service from this owner-operated business, which helps clients realize their full potential through internet, email, and social marketing services.

For more information about IDS Consulting and their services, visit their web site at www.consultids.com.

All project engagements have a learning curve, both for you and for your project partners. It can be a burden to add one resource, or a team of resources, to any project. nFocal’s proven processes and templates, and experienced consulting staff, reduce that burden by allowing our consultants to come up to speed quickly and efficiently. Our project engagements are structured so that changes are estimated, managed, and controlled. Our documentation templates are instrumental in allowing our consultants to quickly get to the heart of the matter. Our requirements and analysis services allow us to understand the problem domain and plan a solution, and therefore avoid building solutions that do not hit the mark. All of these efforts are undertaken by our experienced and talented consulting staff, all of which have extensive experience working for and working with product development organizations.

Many times software-based projects fail to meet schedule timelines and exceed project budgets for two important reasons. The first reason is that the requirements analysis was incomplete and the problem domain was not understood sufficiently before the construction phase of the project commenced. The second reason is that changes were not adequately controlled during the course of the project. Feature creep is a terrible thing to behold, and it has ruined many projects. When it comes to project execution, nobody likes surprises. At the beginning of each project, nFocal sets up a formal change control mechanism with our clients. Requested changes are evaluated, estimated, and managed explicitly, and we work with your project team to ensure that surprises are avoided.

Change control leads to predictable schedules, reducing the amount of churn to the project timeline and increasing the understanding of the impact of changes. But is your initial project schedule accurate? Do you have the right tasks in your plan? What estimation techniques have been used to accurately gauge the duration of tasks in your plan? nFocal draws upon the extensive experience of its consulting staff to identify the necessary tasks in a project plan. We also employ specific estimation techniques to gauge the duration of tasks. Our clients have found these techniques to be effective as we jointly create reliable project plans.

Our experience has reinforced a world view that testability must be addressed during the entire development process, from requirements through design, implementation, and maintenance. nFocal’s proven development processes and documentation templates ensure that testability concerns are  addressed at each stage of the development lifecycle.

Machine to Machine, or M2M as it is more commonly known, is a set of technologies for connecting machines and peripherals up to other machines, or more commonly, up to enterprise-based applications. Using M2M technologies, a service engineer can to remotely log into the desktop of a failing device, or a temperature sensor can send its latest readings to a web-based collector application, or a faulty compressor can notify a HVAC technician that a new relay is needed. nFocal’s broad and focused work in this area is the perfect complement to product developers that want to connect their devices to the “Internet of Things”.