Software Best Practices

Well, I better rephrase that. The functional part of a requirement is cheap. I can deliver the functional part of a requirement in as little time and in as small of a cost as you like if you let me control the non-functional parts of the requirement. That is a heck of a claim. So how do I back that up...

I am trying to understand technical software specifications. My own experience is quite controversial and varied. Overall my impressions are that technical specifications are not well understood and not used much. 1. Identity - what is it? The technical spec is not the same as the functional spec. Joel...

Steve McConnell put up a post on his lack of a real estimate for a child's fort and how that was related to a software project. I have a similar example of an agile bathroom remodel. The Story Our existing bathroom had a small problem. Water was leaking through cracks somewhere in the older tile...

Hello Earl, You got it. Well, unfortunately here, not even risk management we have at this customer. Jumping to the third point, I have already done that on one project and my company have done what I asked, moved me to another customer. About using these best practices I agree that we should use them...

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...

But does the "to-be" nature of requirements make them fundamentally different than the "should-have" nature of a defect? In common, though, is the demand for team time. That is, both the defect and the requirement are a request to have the team spend time modifying the work to behave...

[quote user="talmans"]you need to know if precision requirements are truly needed[/quote] Excellent point and you also identify one of the factors. Knowledge is perishable, so increasing the delay between creating and consuming requirements increases the need for more overhead (setting context...

My daughters like to square dance. They seem to, for whatever reason, really like the petticoats: the layers of fabric that make the square dance skirt get really poofy (as if poofy is a word). To support my daughters, I dance with them since there is a general shortage of males (even if we don't...

I am thinking of going on a crusade against functional requirements. Why? Functional requirements are overblown, over-specified, over-referenced, over-exampled, and we need to get over them. By the over-focus on functional requirements by tools, books, and pundits, we cajole our customers to attempt...

Hey thollis, Hands down, the best product out there for this is Rally . Spend 2 hours with their free (10 user) community edition and you will know what Agile Project Managment should be like. The only issue is the price. The are asking $39 / user / month for their middle range SaaS offering, and $65...