Karl Wiegers - Böcker

20 Best Practices for Developing and Managing Requirements on Any Project

Software Requirements Essentials presents 20 core practices for successful requirements planning, elicitation, analysis, specification, validation, and management. Leading requirements experts Karl Wiegers and Candase Hokanson focus on the practices most likely to deliver superior value for both traditional and agile projects, in any application domain. These core practices help teams understand business problems, engage the right participants, articulate better solutions, improve communication, implement the most valuable functionality in the right sequence, and adapt to change and growth.

Concise and tightly focused, this book offers just enough pragmatic "how-to" detail for you to apply the core practices with confidence, whether you're a business analyst, requirements engineer, product manager, product owner, or developer. Using it, your entire team can build a shared understanding of key concepts, terminology, techniques, and rationales--and work together more effectively on every project.

Learn how to:

Clarify problems, define business objectives, and set solution boundaries Identify stakeholders and decision makers Explore user tasks, events, and responses Assess data concepts and relationships Elicit and evaluate quality attributes Analyze requirements and requirement sets, create models and prototypes, and set priorities Specify requirements in a consistent, structured, and well-documented fashion Review, test, and manage change to requirements

"I once read the ten best-selling requirements engineering books of the prior ten years. This one book succinctly presents more useful information than those ten books combined."--Mike Cohn, author of User Stories Applied and co-founder, Scrum Alliance

"Diamonds come about when a huge amount of carbon atoms are compressed. Karl and Candase have done something very similar: they have compressed their vast requirements knowledge into 20 gems they call 'core practices.' These practices are potent stuff, and I recommend that they become part of everyone's requirements arsenal."--James Robertson, author of Mastering the Requirements Process and Business Analysis Agility

"Long story short: if you are going to read only one requirements book, this is it. Software Requirements Essentials distills the wealth of information found in Software Requirements and many other texts down to twenty of the most important requirements activities that apply on nearly all projects. Today's busy BA simply doesn't have the time to read a lengthy instructive guide front-to-back. But they should find the time to read this book."--From the Foreword by Joy Beatty, COO, ArgonDigital

"Software Requirements Essentials will be a high-value addition to your business analysis library. Anyone looking to improve their business analysis practices will find great practical advice they'll be able to apply immediately."--Laura Paton, Principal Consultant, BA Academy, Inc.

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Peer review works: it leads to better software. But implementing peer review can be challenging -- for technical, political, social, cultural, and psychological reasons. In this book, best-selling software engineering author Karl Wiegers presents succinct, easy-to-use techniques for formal and informal software peer review, helping project managers and developers choose the right approach and implement it successfully. Wiegers begins by discussing the cultural and social aspects of peer review, and reviewing several formal and informal approaches: their implications, their challenges, and the opportunities they present for quality improvement. The heart of the book is an in-depth look at the "nuts and bolts" of inspection, including the roles of inspectors, planning, examining work products, conducting code review meetings; improving the inspection process, and achieving closure. Wiegers presents a full chapter on metrics, and then addresses the process and political challenges associated with implementing successful software review programs. The book concludes with solutions to special review challenges, including large work products and software created by distributed development teams. For all developers, project managers, business analysts, quality engineers, testers, process improvement leaders, and documentation specialists.

Now in its third edition, this classic guide to software requirements engineering has been fully updated with new topics, examples, and guidance. Two leaders in the requirements community have teamed up to deliver a contemporary set of practices covering the full range of requirements development and management activities on software projects.

Describes practical, effective, field-tested techniques for managing the requirements engineering process from end to end. Provides examples demonstrating how requirements "good practices" can lead to fewer change requests, higher customer satisfaction, and lower development costs. Fully updated with contemporary examples and many new practices and techniques. Describes how to apply effective requirements practices to agile projects and numerous other special project situations. Targeted to business analysts, developers, project managers, and other software project stakeholders who have a general understanding of the software development process. Shares the insights gleaned from the authors’ extensive experience delivering hundreds of software-requirements training courses, presentations, and webinars.

New chapters are included on specifying data requirements, writing high-quality functional requirements, and requirements reuse. Considerable depth has been added on business requirements, elicitation techniques, and nonfunctional requirements. In addition, new chapters recommend effective requirements practices for various special project situations, including enhancement and replacement, packaged solutions, outsourced, business process automation, analytics and reporting, and embedded and other real-time systems projects.

This volume in the Business Analysis Professional Development Series by renowned expert and best-selling author, Karl Wiegers, and a group of noteworthy contributors, provides experienced, advanced-level business analysis and project management practitioners with proven strategies and tips for making the successful transition from highly respected internal expert to a fulfilling and financially rewarding career in consulting.Key Features:Addresses how to effectively lay the foundation and structure of your consulting business; how to deal with or avoid the many pitfalls of working outside the corporate world and working remotely from home; and how to balance life, family, and workPresents a list of next steps at the end of each chapter with actions you can take immediately to begin applying the guidance and tips providedFurnishes valuable strategies and tips for such essentials as setting rates for your services, invoicing, purchasing appropriate insurance, establishing important business rules or policies, managing your finances and taxes, and other administrative aspects of your consultancyArticulates how to market your services, land both new and repeat business, negotiate deals, and craft written agreements with clientsDescribes how to establish multiple revenue streams, ways to leverage your work to develop sources of passive income, and some important issues of copyright, fair use, and managing and protecting your valuable intellectual propertyProvides sample checklists to help you keep all the activities you will be juggling as a consultant under controlIdentifies effective techniques for engaging clients in various situations, as well as warning signs about clients who can cause you headaches and how to deal with themSupplies solutions to a wide variety of problems and challenges of the consulting world, contributed by a group of noteworthy independent consultants with diverse experiencesDiscusses other common consultant activities that can generate a steady flow of revenue such as training, presenting at conferences, and other public speaking, and provides guidance and tips for delivering effective presentations with confidenceOffers strategies and tips pertaining to partnering with other consultants on larger projects and how to make such arrangements workExamines the value of participating in professional associations and pursuing relevant professional certifications as a way to market your services and attract new clients and opportunitiesExplores the benefits of writing white papers and articles for magazines, journals, websites, and blogs as a means to simultaneously share your knowledge with the world and market your expertise to prospective clientsElaborates on the process and value of writing a book in the area in which you consult, how to get it published and distributed by a reputable publishing company that can reach your market, how to co-author a book effectively, and how a good selling book can be a powerful tool for getting clients and building your businessWAV offers downloadable templates for consulting, writing, speaking, and licensing agreements, and checklists and forms to help you plan and manage your consulting business -available from the Web Added Value - Download Resource Center