Software Best Practices

Ok. Thank you.
But I have new question about requirements :)

In Steve McConnell's book I read that User Guide can replace
software requirements specification in small projects.

Currently, I have following documents containing requirements:

• Software requirements specification (the very first requirements document);
• Users Guide;
• Use cases and some design drawings;
• "Description and screenshots" page on the application's web site;
• Demo video (and script) about application user can watch on the site;
• Functional tests scenarios.

It is very hard to keep in sync all these documents.
I decided to omit (delete) User Guide at all.
The application is small, simple and not critical.

Can you tell, which of the list items above are redundant?

Hi Maksym,

I moved your post into the requirements section so it can have more visibility.

Steve McConnell's recommendation re: User Guide is that an clear understanding of what the user is trying to do can be a good way to get requirements. It, of course, works best in a user intensive system.

From your list, it is hard to tell without seeing the content. The functional tests should be very similar to the user guide from a requirements standpoint (but not as easy to use by the customer). Use cases can be part of SRS. The Demo video probably has similar content as the users guide and/or the use cases.

So, for a small, not critical system, I would probably have a very light SRS (high level needs), a few use cases, and some functional tests.

Anyone else take a shot?

Earl,

as you see, there are artifacts that user does and does not see. 
You figured out artifacts that user does not see.

What about the demo and pages on the web site?

Thanks.

I am guessing that they server other purposes that just being requirements documents. As such, I would label them SNAPSHOT or DEMO and put big red flags around it that state that the purpose of these are to give you a feeling of what it might be like. The actual application/release may be different. That way, I could mine requirements but I don't need to keep it up to date.

Would that work?

I will see this in the future...

Thank you.