If you are a system design consultant, this piece is for you.
There is a children's poem that explains how the battle was lost for want of a horse shoe nail.
Take a printout of the poem and tape it just above your screen.
Remember that poem when you are doing requirement gathering. It is ALWAYS the small things.
****
When do you do the transaction - how long after you have done it in the real world? Why do you think that is the optimal time?
What do you look for when deciding your sales pitch? What are the elements you need at once place, together?
When do you think its ok to share your password with a colleague? For which apps will you never do it?
What will you do if your orgn KRA requires you to fill daily updates, but you are in a field area with no signal?
***
After 15 years, I have found that the level, industry, or technology does not matter. When a project is delayed or faces user resistance, very often, it is because we did not ask the human questions.
We did not understand the fine print of their lives.
At its core, requirement gathering is a human process. All our phenomenal technology - retina tracking, gesture analysis, only goes so far. In the Indian system, the importance paid to the individual, more than the 'system' is at the core of this human centric approach.
As requirement gatherers, we should try to understand that this is a human interacting with a system, where the human is in charge. With that conscious shift in understanding, we will find ourselves approaching the discipline very differently.
There is a children's poem that explains how the battle was lost for want of a horse shoe nail.
Take a printout of the poem and tape it just above your screen.
Remember that poem when you are doing requirement gathering. It is ALWAYS the small things.
****
When do you do the transaction - how long after you have done it in the real world? Why do you think that is the optimal time?
What do you look for when deciding your sales pitch? What are the elements you need at once place, together?
When do you think its ok to share your password with a colleague? For which apps will you never do it?
What will you do if your orgn KRA requires you to fill daily updates, but you are in a field area with no signal?
***
After 15 years, I have found that the level, industry, or technology does not matter. When a project is delayed or faces user resistance, very often, it is because we did not ask the human questions.
We did not understand the fine print of their lives.
At its core, requirement gathering is a human process. All our phenomenal technology - retina tracking, gesture analysis, only goes so far. In the Indian system, the importance paid to the individual, more than the 'system' is at the core of this human centric approach.
As requirement gatherers, we should try to understand that this is a human interacting with a system, where the human is in charge. With that conscious shift in understanding, we will find ourselves approaching the discipline very differently.
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