Without user guides, users will not only be slow to adopt a new system or tool—they may be hostile to the change. If you want to quickly create user guides for newly developed software and increase adoption rates, this blog post will share a different way to use software requirements to do just that. Because [...]
When helping Seilevel clients define software requirements, one of the many models we use is the Business Data Diagram (BDD). At a high level, the BDD is used to describe the relationships between business objects; in this way, it’s very similar to an Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD). In this post, I’ll share how I learned [...]
This is the last post in a series on “why incorporate the test team into software requirements creation earlier” – for the first post, click here; for the second post, click here. In the first part of this series on the role Testers can and should play in the requirements creation process, I stated that [...]
This is the second post in a series on “why incorporate the test team into software requirements creation earlier” – for the first post, click here. The downsides to not integrating the Test organization into the requirements creation process are rework, schedule slippage, scope changes and budget overruns. Bringing the Test team into the picture much [...]
A lot of the popular literature, training, documentation and processes related to the management of Software Requirements in an organization are typically focused on two constituencies – Users and Developers – and thus miss an important constituency, Testers. User is the catch-all term for anyone who may use the software being created. They typically define [...]
Like many of us, I’ve been known to mumble disparaging remarks about Microsoft under my breath while using their tools. But, I have to say there is at least one thing they did right – the format painter. I run into enough people who don’t know about this that I think it is worth mentioning. Do [...]
Complexity science is a scientific discipline that studies the behavior of complex systems. So what does it have to do with software and product requirements? As you’ll learn, quite a bit. Almost everything we encounter in the world is part of a complex adaptive system (CAS). John Holland, a MacArthur Fellow and professor of [...]
Next week is the yearly techie pilgrimage to Las Vegas to visit the nexus of tech that is CES. This year, I’m excited that startups have been integrated along with the big names we’re used to, like Intel and Microsoft. (I wonder if the rumors are true that Microsoft will not be at CES next [...]
Happy New Year! Seilevel blog writers Betsy Stockdale and Balaji Vijayan have new articles published – Betsy on BA Times, Balaji on Modern Analyst – and yours truly, Seilevel’s blog editor, has a post on IT Toolbox. For Betsy’s article on using business objectives to control scope, visit BA Times here: http://www.batimes.com/articles/using-business-objectives-to-control-scope.html To see Balaji’s [...]
Happy SeiHolidays! Over the next two weeks, we will bring back some of the most heavily-commented-upon blog posts on Seilevel’s Requirements Defined blog. First up: “4 Tips to Not Destroy Your Project…“ Joy Beatty wrote, “A year ago, I was working on a project where we created a list of features in Excel to help [...]
On this blog, we discuss everything about software requirements.
This is your resource for posts on Business Requirements Analysis, Requirements Elicitation, Facilitation and Traceability, and best practices and tips for Business Analysts and Business Architects, direct from the expert practitioners at Seilevel. You'll find software requirements "how tos," opinions, best practices, tips, and information on Requirements Modeling Language (RML), Requirements Object Model (ROM), working with use cases, and other documentation such as BRD/SRS.
This blog features helpful tips on picking Requirements Tools, and even selecting a vendor. We also post on Waterfall and Agile development, and provide helpful advice for requirements planning, tracking and metrics.
If you are a member of IIBA, are a CBAP or CCBA, a new business analyst, or an IT product manager, project manager, requirements analyst, this blog is a great resource for professional growth and career advancement.
And if you're a business architect or manage business analysts, want to mature your business analyst organization, or want to cut scope while increasing value, you've found the right community.
When you're ready to learn about how Seilevel can help, via training, workshops, or requirements services, let me know. I'm Lori Witzel, Director of Marketing at Seilevel, and we're ready to help.
