InfoQ Homepage Customers & Requirements Content on InfoQ
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Article: Using SketchFlow to Create Better Prototypes
Simon Guest of Microsoft introduces SketchFlow by discussing why prototyping is an important developer skill and how a tool can enhance developer-customer interaction. The functionality and features of SketchFlow are presented in the context of an ongoing sample application (an on-line store).
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SOA & The Tarpit of Irrelevancy
A new three-part post by Neil Ford discusses both the rationale behind SOA implementations and the role large vendors play in distracting them.
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Addressing Nonfunctional Requirements in Scrum
Nonfunctional requirements describe qualities of a system (what it is) rather than its behaviors (what it does). Scott Ambler inspired much discussion when he recently asserted "Scrum's product backlog concept works well for simple functional requirements, but... it comes up short for nonfunctional requirements and architectural constraints." in an article on Dr. Dobb's Portal.
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Presentation: When Working Software Is Not Enough: A Story of Project Failure
In this presentation filmed during Agile 2008, Mitch Lacey talks about a real life project that was on the verge of being successful, but was deemed as unsuccessful by the customer. Considering that "the true measure of project progress is working software", Mitch and his team delivered the software, but the client was not satisfied.
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Presentation: Do The Hustle
In this presentation at RubyFringe, Obie Fernandez shares his experience selling consulting services for both Thoughtworks and Hashrocket and gives advice on how developers/consultants can deal with clients by setting minimal requirements, saying "No" and how to choose hourly rates and much more.
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Prioritizing (the Backlog) For Profit
Having difficulty prioritizing the backlog? Luke Hohmann has described a method to make quantitative decisions about which backlog items should be considered first. In addition to the usual attributes such as implementation effort, Luke suggested adding attributes to measure stakeholders needs, strategic alignment and to ask whether the item is driving profit.
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Failures in Agile Development
The Agile software development community discusses it successes on a regular basis, but rarely do we publicly discuss our failures. Robin Dymond has taken the first step by documenting one of his.
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New User Story Format Emphasizes Business Value
User stories, a common format for capturing agile requirements, could be more focused on business value. A traditional format for stating a user story is: "As a <type of user> I want <some functionality> so that <some benefit>." A value-centric replacement would be: "In order to <achieve some value>, as a <type of user>, I want <some functionality>."
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Presentation: Intentional Software
Business users doing programming? Charles Simonyi and Henk Kolk presents how Intentional Software offers a radical new software approach that separates business knowledge from software engineering knowledge, which means that business experts can be more innovative and responsive to the changes in the domain.
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Presentation: Business Natural Languages Development in Ruby
In this presentation, Jay Fields introduces his concept of Business Natural Languages (BNL). BNLs are a type of Domain Specific Language, designed to be readable by any subject matter expert, which allows to create maintainable specifications and documentation. The example languages are implemented using Ruby.
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Debate: Should Architecture Rewrite be Avoided?
As it gets more and more difficult to adapt software to new demands, the temptation to rebuild it in order to update the architecture grows stronger. For this risky undertaking it is essential to choose the right strategy. Several authors provide insights into advantages and disadvantages of different possible options in terms of cost, technical complexity and potential commercial risk.
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InfoQ Video: Practices of an Agile Developer
At NFJS Venkat Subramaniam, co-author with Andy Hunt of "Practices of an Agile Developer," shared his pragmatic approach to some of the important technical and non-technical factors contributing to project success, including: coding, developer attitude, debugging, mentoring and feedback.
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Should the Customer Care about Agile?
The involvement of customer in an Agile project is taken for granted, however in many situations, intentionally or unintentionally, the customer may not follow the Agile practices. An interesting discussion on the Extreme Programming group tries to decipher the situation and find possible solutions.
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Bedtime User Stories: Cowboys and Fairytales
In which David Longstreet claims Agile Software Development is a Fairy Tale that just tries to legitimise Cowboy development, and Geoff Slinker invites him to write a Serious Article based on Logical Arguments and Citing Sources.
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The Future Of Functional Testing
Jennitta Andrea & Ward Cunningham recently hosted a WebCast on 'Envisioning the Next Generation of Functional Test Tools'. Also, towards the end of last year Thoughtworks' announced its intention to release a next generation functional testing tool. InfoQ investigates the growing momentum for change in the area of functional testing and how the thought leaders in this area see it developing.