Questions tagged [requirements]
Use the requirements tag for software development PM questions that involve the subset of documentation related to requirements gathering. For all other documentation questions, use the documentation tag.
178
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What are the definitions and differences between: Theme, Epic, Feature, User Story and Task?
There are several terms which we use to describe requirements:
Theme
Epic
Feature
User Story
Task
What are the formal definitions of these terms and what are the differences between them (except ...
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10
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Is estimating a project without basic requirements or user stories a good idea for a fixed cost proposal?
I am currently trying to create an estimate for a software proposal.
In this context, we are requesting a fixed cost amount of funds.
I personally lean toward Agile development practices. I, however,...
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6
answers
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What are the techniques to elicit requirements from customers who don't understand their needs?
Question:
How do you prevent a situation where you have to produce work-product work first and get client feedback before getting on the right track to meet their needs?
Are there any techniques to ...
14
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9
answers
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What is the difference between requirement and scope?
Scope is divided into two categories:
Product scope, which is the features and functions that characterize a product, service, or result, and;
Project scope, which is all the work needed to deliver a ...
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11
answers
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Requirements management software for mere mortals
I would like to discuss with you a special case of requirements management. I call it “requirements management for mere mortals”.
I had worked as a project manager in a small web development company....
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7
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Should you export data to Excel and Word?
I'm the Project Manager for a large application that customers use to collect data on whether their businesses meet certain medical and financial standards. They generally answer a survey explaining ...
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13
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4
answers
336
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Eliciting Requirements as a Client
Background: I am a computer science student and am currently employed as a programmer for a health institution. Recently we discovered the need for a project which is beyond a 1-man job (I am their ...
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10
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should developers have a say in functional requirements
In general most online resources point out that the functional requirements are the responsibility of the business analyst or product manager.
But developers sometimes can be the expert on a product e....
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12
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4
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Communicating requirements to offshore teams
Just to give a context, there is an offshore team in India for a client in San Francisco. The offshore team is about 9 developers and 4 QA, with one project manager. I am doing onsite coordination for ...
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7
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How can I get our BAs to provide business requirements, and stop confusing them with implementation
Our BAs (Business Analysts) have an annoying habit of providing us with system requirements, rather than business requirements. Often times, they don't even know what the business requirement is.
It ...
- 1,065
11
votes
5
answers
992
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How to keep track of all the goals of a large project?
I have a very large library project in-progress involving French linguistics - (it will be) multi-faceted to work with the many aspects of language, including algorithmic inflections/conjugations, ...
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Which scrum actors should attend a requirements gathering session
I'm currently having a debate with some of my business analysts as to whether the testers and developers from the scrum team assigned to a project should be involved in the requirements gathering ...
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5
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398
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How to communicate with project leaders when they are doing poorly
I have been on multiple projects where the project leaders have not involved themselves in the project enough to even learn what the project is really doing. Other times the project leaders didn't ...
- 271
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Project charter diagrams
What diagrams should be included in a project charter?
In our standard template there is a section for "Implementation approach and methodology", this is where the flow diagrams normally are. The ...
- 1,300
10
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2
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User stories delivery issues
Working in Agile manner, project team routinely delivers parts of software, described in User Stories. Upon each Sprint a working software is delivered, with some additional features added.
The ...
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What are the best practices/methods/tools/techniques for conflict identification in requirements?
For the sake of this discussion requirements = user-stories (since I'm not differentiating any process per se and would like to get rid of any ambiguities).
It's quite common to have a set of about ...
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6
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2k
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What techniques can identify missing requirements?
I am working in a Scrum team developing methods and tools for use inside our organization, although our skillset tends more towards statistics and data science than traditional software development.
...
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8
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4
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2k
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Lately discovered requirements in Scrum
If a requirement is discovered in the middle of a project or even later, then the cost of implementation of this requirement can be very high.
The Scrum suggets that we should only refine the top PBIs ...
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8
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3
answers
485
views
Is it possible to be agile with a highly technical project?
I'm working on a small (4-6) team on a project that involves creating a machine learning model to predict the outcome of sports matches real-time. This also involves scraping the data and storing it ...
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8
votes
11
answers
580
views
Trust issues with a client
I've been negotiating recently with a client who is... well... a bit difficult to work with, to say the least.
He was the first to contact me and request my services. He wants me to build an ...
Nathan J
8
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5
answers
2k
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How to deal with constantly (~daily) changing requirements?
I see a number of similar links, but none seem to have a solution, mostly "they shouldn't be doing that"'s. I agree, but please, read on:
Scenario: 800K pages of documents, narrative(e.g. emails)/...
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1k
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Develop from Use Cases or Business Requirements
I'm involved in a project where the business team created a large business requirements document that were using to create product backlog items and acceptance criteria.
However, they have also ...
- 273
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4
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557
views
Should developers be talking to users during Story planning / refinement?
When you have a Product Owner who is less technical, can developers be brought into discovery with users and stakeholders?
e.g. A new project is underway and the PO is doing discovery, creating epics,...
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Single backlog. Multiple teams. How to handle Backlog Refinement?
Background
Hi all, I am an experienced SM but I thought I would crowdsource a solution to this from peers. The project is an enterprise scale migration to the cloud with over 500 customers ...
- 4,085
7
votes
1
answer
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Techniques to calculate the cost of change in software engineering
There is a bunch of techniques to do software estimation.
Now given a piece of software, is there some methods/techniques to evaluate the cost of change of an already implemented requirement ?
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Software Projects with loose requirements
What is the best method(s) to keep software projects on track when the requirements are loosely defined? (i.e. Just general functional concepts provided).
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383
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Slow client answers
Let's say, I have a project with well fixed deadlines, and a pretty good specification. Every specification needs additional discussion, with taking in consideration the client's requirements (I mean, ...
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398
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how to estimate costs of projects that have not been clearly defined
how to estimate costs of projects that have not been clearly needs. for example I got a project to create information systems for xxxxx, then the client requesting the cost of it, while I do not know ...
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Does a change request change the requirement specification?
Imagine this: You are working on a already developed system in a stable release and now there is a change request coming up. Do you need to rewrite/change the requirement specification (and update the ...
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2
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Documenting requirements on an Agile project
One of the values of the Agile Manifesto is "working software over comprehensive documentation". And yet there is a need for requirements to be documented. If a feature developed 6 months ago is ...
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Where do requirements end and design begin?
I imagine this question has been asked in various forms previously but I couldn't locate a specific answer after searching around.
I am currently working in an independent oversight role on an ...
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467
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Project Estimation is off by 50% or More! Who is Responsible for Vague Requirements?
I've just started doing some small contracts for the first time, and I'm working on a project with a person responsible for dealing with the client and analyzing requirements.
In this case, there was ...
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3
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405
views
How can I complete a project with unfixed requirements from the client?
How can I politely ask a customer to participate in the design of the deliverables before we begin work?
I have received a content update and brochure design job from client. Unfortunately it is so ...
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6k
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What are the disadvantages and advantages of the MoSCoW model?
I*ve used the MoSCoW model (but I'm not project manager, I'm developer) and I think it is good. But I also think that you can tell me more and perhaps find a drawback that I didn't think of while I ...
5
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3
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Security Requirements and User Stories
How I should represent Security Requirements if I use User Stories?
Should they be represented like special "evil" stories?
or
Should they be just "invisible" parts of user stories? I.e. if ...
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5
votes
3
answers
370
views
May I not use the users stories in Scrum?
It is more convenient for me to describe requirements in technical terms. So is it possible not to use the users stories in Scrum? Will it be Agile still?
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How to approach a project given to new PM during execution with vague requirements?
One of our PMs just got a new project that was on the execution phase with vague requirements. Because of these vague requirements, the Client have requested many changes, and the product development ...
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5
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2
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920
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Requirements vs User stories
In this accepted answer (from Software Engineering StackExchange) to a question targeting my blocker, one can read:
(...) think of user stories as a subset of requirements (...)
It's quite ...
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4
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How to handle 'ilities' (or non-functional requirements) for a project planning/prioritization/work-allocation?
It seems the world is doing a good job at managing functional requirements for a system - you can link them to benefits, prioritize them and manage their implementation schedule (let's assume an ideal ...
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How to deal with unclear requirements?
We're a company manufacturing moulds and other tools that our customers then use in their machines.
I was given a set of requirements for building a web application, which someone thinks that our ...
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5
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320
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How can I gather requirements from those who don't want to give time for interviewing?
Actually, I'm a fresh CS graduate, who wants to build a system for his dad's road transport business.
However, the issue is, whenever I go to ask to him about:
who are the people involved in his ...
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2
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How does one manage scope in JIRA?
I work in a software development company. We develop with Fixed Price contracts, thus there's a lot of BDUF (Big design up front). During the initial/planning phase, we create very big monolithic ...
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4
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3
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527
views
Could the Product Owner be a user of a user story in Scrum?
We have the most of our PBI in user story format:
As a [user], I need [requirement], so that [reason].
I need to write some requirements affecting directly to the product but not exactly to any user,...
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848
views
Making backlog items independent - how that can be achieved?
Many sources and agile coaches repeat this INVEST mantra, when I stands for "Independent", i.e. defining stories that can be implemented in any order. While it sounds reasonable, I do not believe it ...
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735
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How do I deal with a potentially difficult client on a web project?
I am a project manager with three years of experience working as a PM.
We have a client here who has a pretty good relationship with our company. He sent us a web-project from one of his referrals ...
4
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6
answers
2k
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How to record client requirements?
How a typical Software development company keep records of client requirements? For example:
A) One day client asked us to add a tracking code to his website.
B) Another day same client asked us to ...
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votes
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310
views
Is onboarding a non-functional requirement?
I work on a team that manages DevOps tools for a software company. When an engineer from one of our product teams wants to use one of our tools, they clone a series of Jira tickets and work through ...
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2
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How to track change requests over a functional document
Functional requirements tend to mature as the time goes by, and the initial versions of requirements for a project are usually based on assumptions (otherwise the work would never start).
As the ...
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4
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2
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991
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What artifacts does Scrum require for application design and systems documentation?
I have been a developer for awhile. Recently, I got promoted within my team. Now I am responsible for application design and documentation, and am thinking of following the Scrum methodology.
We are ...
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3
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862
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Project Objectives vs Stakeholder Needs
In requirements gathering I've learnt to outline the objectives for the project as well as identify stakeholders and the stakeholder needs (along with the users needs, which is off-topic for this ...
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