How Tiny Examples Will Save Our Broken Requirements

Presented at Business Analyst World, Atlanta.

From the promotion materials:
There is a special place where the hidden treasure of great requirements are found. It’s not that what we have today is bad, but it’s time to move beyond writing stodgy requirements no one else is willing to read. Diagrams are great for communicating, but most of the time you need more than just pictures. And user stories a really good step forward, but many of us find they are still missing something. The secret may lie in Behavior Driven Development (BDD). The fabulous thing, besides the cool name, is this is easy to learn, easy to use, and produces better stories, requirements, tests, and code! This presentation is for analysts who already know how to write requirements, but want to move to something more productive. This is an introduction to a new technique, using natural language to describe both the value and features of a system and each interaction. Come learn about writing requirements and acceptance criteria in business language (for your customers) that are clear and complete (for your developers) and super-duper easy to double-check (for the testers)!

Transcript

1. BEHAVIOR DRIVEN DEVELOPMENT & TINY EXAMPLES Business Analyst World Atlanta, GA March 3-4, 2014
2. @JeffreyGoodReq #BDD at #BAWATL
4. We can only consider a few things at a time.
5. 7 ± 2
6. 4 – 5
7. Intertwined things must be considered together
9. Complexity undermines understanding
11. What is a good requirement?
12. §  Valuable §  Concise §  Design-free §  Attainable §  Complete §  Consistent §  Unambiguous §  Verifiable §  Atomic §  Understandable
13. Have we helped the situation? NO
14. HOW TINY EXAMPLES WILL SAVE OUR BROKEN REQUIREMENTS
15. Clear, unambiguous definition of done
16. Value comes from understanding
17. Common understanding Stakeholder Analyst & UX Developer Tester User
18. Functional requirements are best understood . . . in context with actors, actions, and results
19. Functional requirements are best understood . . . as Examples
21. You & your condition Context What you do What you see Event Response
22. You & your condition What you do What you see
23. You & your condition What you do What you see
24. Context Event Response
26. Pick a role §  Princess or Knight §  Olympic Athlete §  Singer §  Scientist
27. Pick a sidekick §  Cousin §  Pet §  Stuffed animal §  Talking bird
28. Pick an activity §  Walking §  Flying §  Having a picnic §  Shopping
29. Pick a place §  In the forest §  By the ocean §  On the roof §  In town
30. Pick 2 events §  You hear a loud roar §  Your sidekick chases a bird §  A furry monster walks up §  A horse asks for your help §  You shrink to 4” high
31. Pick a response §  Say “Not again!” §  Pull a biscuit out of your pocket §  Laugh §  Fall into a puddle
32. Once upon a time _________ and ________ were ________ in ________. As they were ________ they ________ and ________. Then you ________. role sidekick respond event activity event activity location
33. Context Event Response
34. Context Event Response
35. Context Event Response When Given Then
36. Given is Personable
37. When is Actionable
38. Then is Visible
39. Behavior
40. Conversation
41. Misunderstanding Misunderstanding
42. “Hi, Grandma”
43. Design free
45. Bahamas Balloons §  Travel City Pair (Origin – Destination, OND) §  Date §  Seats §  Name & credit card
46. Given: I want to fly to the Bahamas When: I select my travel city pair Then: I see the dates available
47. Given: I see the available travel dates When: I choose my travel date Then: I see how many seats are available
48. Examples …
49. Examples … amplify what we know
50. Examples … point out holes
51. Examples … are provable
53. Given: I have chosen a travel itinerary When: I submit my name and payment information Then: I see a confirmation #
54. Travel itinerary Origin Dest Pass Date Name Atlanta Bahamas 1 Mar 15, 2014 Kupe Submit Itinerary Payment confirmation Valid Good Display “Congratulations, you are ready for your trip! Your confirmation numbers are NNNNNN” Conf# 000001 Then When Given
56. Bahamas Balloons §  Multiple travelers §  Invalid itinerary §  Missing payment info §  Confirmation failure
57. Given: I have chosen a travel itinerary When: I submit my name and payment information Then: I see a confirmation #
58. Origin Dest Pass Date Name Atlanta Bahamas 1 Mar 15, 2014 Kupe Atlanta Bahamas 4 Mar 15, 2014 Mary Bahamas Atlanta 5 Mar 18, 2014 Kent Itinerary Payment confirmation Valid Good Valid Good Valid Failure Message Conf# Confirmation 000001 Confirmation 000002, 000003, 000004, 000005 “Please call” Then When Given
59. What’s happening?
60. How’d we get here?
61. Understanding
62. Please try:
63. Business terms & Natural language
64. Happy path first
65. Please avoid:
66. Too many examples
67. Too many “ands”
68. Describing how
69. Jargon
70. THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE BETWEEN REQUIREMENTS AND UNDERSTANDING
72. When Given Then
73. Gojko Adzic Specification by Example gojko.net Rich Hickey It’s Not Easy Simple Made Easy presented @ StrangeLoop 2001 Liz Keogh BDD lunivore.com Dan North BDD & Crevasse of Doom w/ M. Fowler dannorth.net
74. This is licensed under CC BY 3.0; Creative Commons Sharealike Please use it Please share it Please improve it As long as you credit me somewhere
75. Appendix
76. Try: Capturing behavior using a conversation. Make it easy to understand by telling a story using business terms in natural language. Avoid: §  Too many examples §  Too many “ands” §  Describing how §  Skipping examples §  Jargon §  Not readable Tiny Examples / #BDD Jeffrey Davidson BA World | Atlanta 2014 goodrequirements.com Tips: §  Input, Action, Output §  Use real data §  Use tables to format examples §  Give multiple cases when Input or Output varies §  Mockups can also be an example §  Give examples for ALL stories §  Reuse your examples / data §  Use automation tools to make examples live §  Do it collaboratively Context – Event – Response §  Given is personable §  When is actionable §  Then is visible
77. THANK YOU For questions or suggestions: Jeffrey Davidson Consulting Business Analyst goodrequirements.com @JeffreyGoodReq jeffrey@davidson.net