Conference Presentations

Find Requirements Defects to Build Better Software
Slideshow

Requirements defects are often the source of the majority of all software defects. Discovering and correcting a defect during testing is typically twenty-five times more expensive than correcting it during the requirements definition phase. Identifying and removing defects early in the...
John Terzakis, Intel
Driving Down Requirements Defects: A Tester’s Dream Come True

The industry knows that a majority of software defects have their root cause in poor requirements. So how can testers help improve requirements? Richard Bender asserts that requirements quality significantly improves when testers systematically validate the requirements as they are developed.
Richard Bender, BenderRBT
Strength in Numbers: Using Web Analytics to Drive Test Requirements
Slideshow

Once a client’s website is built, you’d think it would be time for a well-deserved break. However, almost immediately, questions come up—can we capture a larger audience? close more orders? increase our sales? And so, it’s time to redesign the site—and the test strategy and plans...
Lindiwe Vinson, Organic, Inc.
Specification-by-Example: A Cucumber Implementation
Slideshow

We've all been there. You work incredibly hard to develop a feature and design tests based on written requirements. You build a detailed test plan that aligns the tests with the software and the documented business needs. When you put the tests to the software, it all falls apart because the requirements were updated without informing everyone. But help is at hand. Enter business-driven development and Cucumber, a tool for running automated acceptance tests. Join Mary Thorn as she explores the nuances of Cucumber and shows you how to implement specification-by-example, behavior-driven development, and agile acceptance testing. By fostering collaboration for implementing active requirements via a common language and format, Cucumber bridges the communication gap between business stakeholders and implementation teams.
Mary Thorn, Deutsche Bank
It's About Products Not Projects: Product and Portfolio Roadmaps

If you are managing your portfolio using projects, and not products, you may be missing opportunities to deliver more business value to your organization. Product and portfolio roadmaps are a strategic tool that you can use to align business goals and value to product delivery plans. Ellen Gottesdiener explores the why's, what's, and how's of product roadmaps including the different types of product roadmaps, steps for building and sustaining product roadmaps, key planning inputs, who should be involved, and techniques for exploring and evaluating features along the roadmap. Roadmaps articulate how your products will achieve their vision, help uncover technology requirements, communicate to internal and external customers, and provide a sound foundation for planning. Learn how roadmaps can help you deliver the right products, address customer needs, and make tough choices that will deliver strategic value.
Ellen Gottesdiener, EBG Consulting, Inc.
The Right Question for the Right Requirements
Slideshow

How often have you gone down the road of developing software almost to completion only to discover new requirements that require significant design and coding changes at the last minute? Requirements analysis is not just writing down what customers say they want. It's about digging down and discovering what they need. Without real analysis, our requirements often end up as poorly defined lists, anemic mock-ups, and incomplete or inconsistent models. Jack Jones spotlights one simple technique to discover these needs: Ask "why?" When the customer states a requirement, ask "why?" to delve down a level to discover their real problem, need, or opportunity. You may find you need to repeat "why?" a number of times. Join Jack to explore the very real consequences of not comprehending customer needs early in the process, and practice better communications techniques to avoid unnecessary requirements and scope changes.
Jack Jones, KMI
Better Software Conference East 2012: Data Collection and Analysis for Better Requirements
Slideshow

According to the Standish group, 64 percent of features in systems are rarely-or never-used. How does this happen? Today, the work of eliciting the customers' true needs, which remains elusive, can be enhanced using data-driven requirements techniques. Brandon Carlson introduces data collection approaches and analysis techniques you can employ on your projects right away. Find out how to instrument existing applications and develop new requirements based on operational profiles of the current system. Learn to use A/B testing-a technique for trying out and analyzing alternative implementations-on your current system to determine which new features will deliver the most business value. With these tools at hand, you can help users and business stakeholders decide the best approaches and best new features to meet their real needs. Now is the time to take the guesswork out of requirements and get "Just the facts, Ma'am."
Brandon Carlson, Lean TECHniques, Inc.
Using Business Objectives to Design Better Products
Slideshow

When software products are late to launch, a practical solution is to drop features from a release while still delivering a product your customers will love. If part of your process is to tie business objectives to product features, you'll have at hand the information needed to decide how to proceed-as well as a guide to prioritize development efforts throughout the project. Joy Beatty explains how to elicit measurable business objectives from stakeholders. She demonstrates how to write statements that describe how a feature contributes to business objectives and ways to assign a business value to each feature. Armed with this data, stakeholders can compare features quantitatively, taking emotion out of scoping decisions. As a reminder of the techniques discussed, Joy shares a Business Objectives Model quick reference for you to take home and use in your requirements elicitation sessions.
Joy Beatty, Blue Ocean Services at Seilevel, Inc.
Tests and Requirements: You Can't Have One without the Other

The practice of software development, including agile, requires a clear understanding of business needs. Misunderstanding requirements causes waste, missed schedules, and mistrust within the organization. A disagreement about whether or not an incident is a defect can arise between testers and developers when the cause is really a disagreement about the requirement itself. Ken Pugh describes how you can use acceptance tests to decrease this misunderstanding of intent. A testable requirement provides a single source that serves as the analysis document, acceptance criteria, regression test suite, and progress tracker for any given feature. Ken explores the creation, evaluation, and use of testable requirements by the business and developers. Examine how to transform requirements into stories- small units of work-each of which has business value, small implementation effort, and easy to understand acceptance tests.
Ken Pugh, Net Objectives
Collaboration Workshops: Discover, Plan, and Prepare the Product Backlog

To deliver high-value products, your agile team must reach a shared understanding of prioritized stakeholder needs. Collaborative techniques are best for this type of work, but not all agile teams use them or use them efficiently. Some rely too heavily on written user stories or story maps and fail to address complex topics or resolve requirements conflicts among stakeholders. Ellen Gottesdiener outlines how you can systematically collaborate about the product backlog in nimble, timely workshops that give your team an open venue for working together to make complicated decisions. Ellen explores collaborative techniques for backlog discovery and preparation. She teaches you to use the Seven Dimensions technique to make sure you capture all product needs.
Ellen Gottesdiener, EBG Consulting, Inc.

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