This blog post originates from Capers Jones LinkedIn comments about toxic requirements.  He posted a comment to a requirements article and brought up bloated requirements and toxic requirements.  I have never heard of the name “toxic requirements” perhaps that is uniquely Capers Jones identifier – I like it.  However, I believe I have experienced toxic […]

We have discussed the nonfunctional requirements for extensibility in our earlier posts.  Now we turn to others in the nonfunctional list of requirements. Today we are going to consider maintainability.  Maintainability is the measure of ability to successfully repair or fix the product after manufacturing, usually in the field, and over time. For manufacturing entities, […]

You do not have to go it alone when it comes to developing requirements. There are many templates and well-defined approaches to help in this regard.  If you are developing a complex system, it is good to break the requirements up, starting at the highest level of abstraction.  We will call that systems specification.  The […]

In keeping with our requirements work, we will start by identifying the attributes of a good requirement.  We start our project off with the requirements, so it stands to reason if we start off poorly or in the wrong direction, we will not make the objective.  This situation will get worse the longer we spend […]

In this series on CMMI (capability maturity model integration) and requirements, we have discussed: understanding requirements commitment to the requirements control changes to requirements traceability of requirements from detail to scope and back inconsistencies, the difference between of what is included and what is being done The processes above work together and amount to managing the […]

CMMI Requirements Management We decided to continue with requirements management since there are some generic goals that are probably just as important as the previously discussed specific goal and practices.  This is especially true when we consider the long-term impact on our project execution capabilities. CMMI Generic Goals The generic goals associated with requirements management […]

Imagine, a story based on true events. This is not John Lennon’s Imagine.  Imagine you are an executive and you are sitting down to your early morning breakfast with the daily paper.  As you read the paper, you find an article about your company and you are stunned.  The article is not a flattering article […]

I am writing this post after a discussion with some people on product development and project management processes.  The discussion took a turn to process intensive approach or not to use a defined process.  There are many ideas of how this can work, for example the Capability Maturity Model Integration is an example of the […]

Risks and Communication Management A significant portion of successful project management is due to communication, so it should stand to reason that ineffective communications can be a significant source of project failures.  Everything from evoking scope and requirements, prioritizing objectives, to team building requires effective communication. Communication is used in keeping the project team in […]