Articles

How to Maintain a Compatible User Experience How to Maintain a Compatible User Experience

Tara Nicholson explains why it's important to take into account compatibility, which refers to the ability of a software system to function across a variety of client software (browsers), operating systems, and hardware combinations. In this article, Tara shares some helpful strategies for you to consider when maintaining a compatible user experience.

Tara Nicholson's picture Tara Nicholson
It’s Time for Requirements Craftsmanship It’s Time for Requirements Craftsmanship

Holly Bielawa explains that being a a requirements craftsman means that you need to test your assumptions in real time while developing a product. Then you pivot as needed, change your business model as you learn, and constantly get out of the building and gather data to determine your minimally marketable product.

Holly Bielawa's picture Holly Bielawa
Using Agile for Requirements Management Using Agile for Requirements Management

Charuta Phansalkar writes on the necessity of capturing and understanding requirements using agile practices. Agile, when implemented effectively, will ensure that the customer's voice is clearly understood throughout the project, which results in maximum customer satisfaction.

Charuta Phansalkar's picture Charuta Phansalkar
Traceability in a Practical Way How to Implement CM and Traceability in a Practical Way

Software development can often be a very complex endeavor, so it is no wonder that important details can sometimes get lost in the process. Here, Bob Aiello discusses how to implement configuration management (CM) and traceability in a practical and realistic way.

Bob Aiello's picture Bob Aiello
 CM Professionals Need to Know about Business Requirements What CM Professionals Need to Know about Business Requirements

While we know the technology, some configuration management (CM) experts don’t always have a strong enough business focus, which can be a real problem. Read on if you would like to understand what CM professionals need to know about business requirements and how CM can directly impact the business itself.

Bob Aiello's picture Bob Aiello
Designing Products for Users in Context

When designing software, you must look beyond simply knowing the goals of your users. It's far more useful to understand the context in which the product will be used.

Scott Sehlhorst's picture Scott Sehlhorst
Three Ways to Talk When You Are Listening

We know listening is important—typically it’s what our stakeholders have to share that we most need to hear when eliciting and validating scope or requirements. At the same time, as business analysts, we cannot be passive flies on the wall.

Laura Brandenburg's picture Laura Brandenburg
People Skills Play an Essential Role in Release Management

Release management is a complex function that involves many essential technical tasks that must be completed in a very specific way. At first glance, one might think that Release Management has little or nothing to do with personality and psychology. In the book Configuration Management Best Practices: Practical Methods that Work in the Real World, Bob Aiello and I focused three of our fourteen chapters on the people side of CM. The fact is that people skills play an essential role in release management. Read on if you want to improve your ability to get the job done and achieve success in release management!

Leslie  Sachs's picture Leslie Sachs
swing hanging from tree Finish on Time by Managing Scale

When deciding how a user's task is to be supported in our software, we often look at possible design solutions and select one that's best for the product and the user. As the project deadline approaches, however, we might choose to dismiss some features outright. In this column, Jeff Patton suggests we try keeping more features by adjusting their scale.

Jeff Patton's picture Jeff Patton
Requirements-Based Development: A Software Configuration Management View

It seems so obvious that we should develop systems based on requirements, and yet it turns out to be rather hard to do and thus many organizations are doing it very badly. From a software configuration management standpoint, we could perhaps leave the whole process of requirements engineering to one side and focus on the management of requirements and thus the aspects of change control and traceability. That would perhaps be unduly ducking the issue, and, of course, we can’t resist giving an opinion anyway!

Pages

CMCrossroads is a TechWell community.

Through conferences, training, consulting, and online resources, TechWell helps you develop and deliver great software every day.