jarviscindy@hotmail.com

The Reflection - Too : Storytelling

Challenge:  I have been working in Software Development & Support field for past many years. Over this period, one  thing which has consistently stood out as a challenge is - to elicit and capture precise user requirements.

Since the user requirements are either not elicited properly or not articulated correctly, moving forward  with such 'half-evolved' requirements lead to more defects or rework at latter stage, both of which are  not good for users or developers. To overcome this challenge, we came up with simple to use  storytelling as a tool with framework called by an acronym "R-CEP" R - Requirement; C - Context; E -  Explanation; P - Point.

Selection:   The storytelling tool was selected as it gave possibility to interact with the users in open-ended manner.  But keeping it too open-ended would have caused vagueness and outcome to be inconsistent.

We, (group of project managers) did a brainstorming and came to conclusion that each requirement  needs to preced with some context which can lead to proper understanding, explanation and even  connection with user situations with the requirement. However, this capturing process needed to be  easily replicable so that it's output can be as much consistent as possible or in short - we needed to have  a "standardized" process.

In order to standardize the process of capturing the context and articulating the requirement precise,  sequence of steps were formulated as below -

1. Requirement - in brief (max 1 to 3 sentences)

2. Context - Here project developer is supposed to write the context of this requirement after doing a  understanding session with the user, write the context and get it validated from the user that this  wording correctly captures the context.

3. Explanation - This part - gives possibility to attach any additional documents, explanation, additional  scanarios by users themselves. This is typically the ground work on which the "Context" section is  articulated.

4. Point - Essentially, this is reemphasizing the requirement at the end to conclude that the user and the  developer agreed jointly to finalize the requirement on which the solution will be developed during the  project.

jarviscindy@hotmail.com

Application:  The storytelling as a tool with the above mentioned framework when we applied initially in first project,  the results were stunning, but with one side-effect - Requirement gathering phase got way too  elongated (delayed than the original plan). However, over the entire duration of the project, the  benefits we observed that this delay in Requirement gathering got almost entirely compensated by  quicker development, lesser defects and better user engagement. Hence it will be important for future  projects, where we plan to use R-CEP framework to Requirements gathering, to control the requirement  gathering phase.

Insight:  The usage of Storytelling tool with the R-CEP framework, helped in multiple ways.

1. The requirements gathered were have right context to suppliment the requirement explanation which  always helped developers while writing the code.

2. Since the framework is replicable, it helped in achieving the consistency in Requirement gathering,  clarification and evolution to ensure the correct development.

3. The intereactions of developers with the user community brought in right engagement with the users  as mentioned by Andre Martin in his brief video.This also ensured that users were always "on-board" to  the requirement, in letter and spirit.

4. The requirements documentation this achieved, helped project team to tie up the requirements and  trace them right up to delivery and completion of the project. This led to achieving significant user  satisfaction.

Despite these compelling benefits however, one challenge faced while implementing this framework  was that - insisting everyone to follow these steps and not to skip or bypass them to save time.

Approach:  Given the wide variety of requirements possible in various projects, the approach of Storytelling may  need some refinement. However, Storytelling as a tool perfectly suits Requirement gathering purpose.  The framework adpoted (R-CEP) helps to put structure to otherwise amorphous nature of requirements  gathered otherwise. Other alternative approaches which have been used, fell short in terms of points  mentioned in the Insight section.

