5 Techniques
- MoSCoW
- Timeboxing
- Facilitated Workshops
- Modelling
- Iterative Development
MoSCoW: Must Have
- 60% of total effort available, provides the Minimum Usable Subset of requirements
- Defined by..
1. No point “delivering on time” without it
2. Not legal without it
3. Not safe without it
4. Cannot deliver viable solution without it
MoSCoW Should Have
- 20% of total effort available Defined by.. 1. Important, but not vital 2. Painful to leave out, but not viable 3. Can have temporary workaround e.g. manage expectations, paper solution, existing solution.
MoSCoW Could Have
- 20% of total effort available
- Differentiate Should from Could but reviewing degree of pain e.g. numers of people effected, business value
Defined by…
1. Wanted or desireable but less important
2. Less impact if left out - 20% here provides contingency to get ‘expected case’ out there. If time to add them in, this is best case scenario.
MoSCoW Won’t Have this time
- Agreed to not be delivered
- Help clarify the scope of the project
- Help to manage expectations
Three Levels of MoSCoW
- Project
- Project Increment
- Timebox
Timebox Structure
- Kick-off
- Investigation
- Refinement
- Consolidation
- Close-out
Timebox Kickoff
Short Session 1-3 hours for SDT to understand and accept timebox objectives
Timebox Investigation
10-20% of effort Agreement on... - Timebox Deliverables - acceptance of criteria for deliverables - a measure of success for Timebox Ends with a review to inform refinement
Timebox Refinement
60-80% of effort
- Encompasses bulk of development e.g. addressing requirements, testing
Ends with a review to inform consolidation
Timebox Consolidation
10-20% of effort
- Ties up loose ends related to evolutionary development
- Ensures product meets previously affirmed criteria
Ends with a review to inform close-out
Timebox Close-out
Short session 1-3 hours
- Formal acceptance of Timebox deliverables by Business Visionary and Technical Coordinator.
- Ends with Timebox retrospective workshop; lessons from timebox and future improvements.
Free-format Timebox
Kick-off: Short session with SDT to understand timebox objectives, agree workload, agree priorities and accept these as realistic
Iterative Development: ID and testing in a sequence driven by priorities. Can informally adopt investigate, refine and consolidate concepts. Important that reviews are scheduled to maintain business focus and stakeholder buy in
Clos-out: formal acceptance of timebox deliverables by Business Visionary and Technical Coordinator. Followed by a short Timebox retrospective workshop.
Daily Standup
Normally no longer than 15mins: 2 mins per participants+2 mins.
Facilitated Workshops
Special type of meeting with:
- Clear objective deliverables
- A set of people specifically chosen and empowered to deliver required outcome
- An independent person (workshop facilitator useful here) to enable effective achievement of objective
Benefits of facilitated workshops
- rapid high-quality decision making
- greater buy-in for SH’s
- build team spirit and consensus
- Clarification of issues.
Facilitated Workshop success factors
- Workshop facilitator
- Flexible format but clearly defined objectives
- Throrough preperation
- Mechanism for ensuring outcomes of previous workshops are built in
- Workshop report outlines decisions, actions and outcome.
Modelling
- A description or analogy used to help visualise something that cannot be directly observed
- Small but exact copy of something
- Pattern or figure of something to be made
Designed to improve communications and prompt the right questions. Usually incorporates degree of ABSTRACTION, omitting certain information from model to allow clearer focus on another specific aspect
Modelling Questions
What: the information within the solution area, data relationships and business rules
How: the functions and features within the solution area
Where: The locations at which the business operates, in relation to solution area
Who: customers, users, stakeholders
When: events of importance to business
why: business objective and strategy
Iterative Development
- The process in which the evolving solution/solution increment goes from a high-level concept into something with acknowledged business value.
- Goes through a cycle of thought, action and conversation (beginning and ending with convo)
Quality in Iterative Development
Achieved through reviews and testing
- Review: can range from informal peer reviews, to highly structured formal reviews from experts (formality driven by nature of product or regulatory standards)
- Testing: Three types of tests. Positive (does what it should) Negative (doesn’t do what it shouldn’t) and unhappy path tests (check behaviour of deliverable when unexpected, unusual things happen)
Quality in ID Roles
Solution tester carries out all tests EXCEPT:
Business acceptance testing (Business Ambassador and Advisor)
Unit testing: Solution Developer
