How to Improve Your Requirements with Tiny Stories

Presented at Project Summit * Business Analyst World in Philadelphia

Stop writing boring requirements! No matter how much you love them, they often get in the way of communicating. The secret to good communication isn't is writing more, it's in doing it differently. Instead of stale requirements you should tell tiny stories! During this presentation we will talk about writing requirements with little stories, sometimes known as Behavior Driven Development / BDD, Specification by Example, or Given-When-Then. (In the IIBA Agile Extension to the BABOK, it's called Get Real Using Examples.) The key isn't the many different names, it's about structuring your requirements based upon behavior and using this to ensure everyone from user - to - developer - to - stakeholder understands the functionality and goals. Come and learn about Tiny Stories and how they will help you keep your project on track.

Learning Objectives
1. Practice building requirements using the Given-When-Then structure.
2. Understand why it is important to use natural language & business terms.
3. Learn why scenarios add huge power to requirements and enable living requirement documentation.

Transcript

1. How to
   Improve
   Your Requirements
   with
   Tiny Stories
   

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2. Jeffrey Davidson
   twitter: @JeffreyGoodReq
   blog: goodrequirements.com
   email: jeffrey@davidson.net
   

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3. View Slide

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5. Pick a role
   § 
   Princess
   § 
   Fireman
   § 
   Singer
   § 
   Scientist
   

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6. Pick a sidekick
   § 
   Cousin
   § 
   Pet
   § 
   Stuffed animal
   § 
   Talking bird
   

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7. Pick an activity
   § 
   Walking
   § 
   Flying
   § 
   Having a picnic
   § 
   Shopping
   

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8. Pick a place
   § 
   In the forest
   § 
   By the ocean
   § 
   On the roof
   § 
   In town
   

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9. 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
   

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10. Pick a response
    § 
    Say “Not again!”
    § 
    Pull a biscuit out of your
    pocket
    § 
    Laugh
    § 
    Fall into a puddle
    

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11. Once upon a time _________ and
    ________ were ________ in
    ________. As you were ________
    they ________ and ________.
    Then you ________.
    role
    sidekick
    respond
    event
    activity
    event
    activity
    location
    

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13. We can only
    consider a few
    things at a time.
    

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14. 7 ± 2
    

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15. 4 – 5
    

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16. Intertwined things
    must be considered
    together
    

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18. Complexity
    undermines
    understanding
    

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20. What is a good
    requirement?
    

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21. § 
    Valuable
    § 
    Concise
    § 
    Design-free
    § 
    Attainable
    § 
    Complete
    § 
    Consistent
    § 
    Unambiguous
    § 
    Verifiable
    § 
    Atomic
    §  Understandable
    

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22. Clear, unambiguous
    definition of done
    

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23. Value comes from
    understanding
    . . .
    

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24. Value comes from
    understanding
    

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25. There is no
    difference between
    requirements and
    understanding
    

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26. Common
    understanding
    Stakeholder
    Analyst & UX
    Developer
    Tester
    User
    

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27. Functional requirements
    are best understood . . .
    in context with actors,
    actions, and results
    

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28. Functional requirements
    are best understood . . .
    as Stories
    

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29. How
    Tiny Stories
    will save
    our broken
    Requirements
    

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30. D A D D Y !
    

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31. You & your condition
    Context
    What you do
    What you see
    Event
    Response
    When
    Given
    Then
    

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32. Given is Personable
    

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33. When is Actionable
    

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34. Then is Visible
    

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35. Behavior
    

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36. Conversation
    

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37. Misunderstanding
    Misunderstanding
    

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38. “Hi, Grandma”
    

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39. Design free
    

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41. § 
    Origin & Destination
    § 
    Date
    § 
    Seats
    § 
    Name & credit card
    

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42. §  Given:
    §  When:
    §  Then:
    §  Given: I want to fly to the
    Bahamas
    §  When: I select my travel city
    pair
    §  Then: I see the dates
    available
    

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43. §  Given: I see the available
    travel dates
    §  When: I choose my travel
    date
    §  Then: I see how many seats
    are available
    

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44. Examples …
    

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45. Examples …
    are provable
    

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46. Examples …
    amplify what we know
    

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47. Examples …
    point out holes
    

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49. Given: I have chosen a travel
    itinerary
    When: I submit my name and
    payment information
    Then: I see a confirmation #
    

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50. Travel itinerary
    Origin Dest Pass Date Name
    Atlanta Bahamas 1 Apr 15, 2014 Lynn
    Submit
    Itinerary Payment confirmation
    Valid Good
    Display “Congratulations, Lynn. You are ready for your
    trip! Your confirmation numbers are NNNNNN”
    Conf#
    000001
    Then When Given
    

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52. § 
    Multiple travelers
    § 
    Invalid itinerary
    § 
    Missing payment info
    § 
    Confirmation failure
    

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53. Given: I have chosen a travel
    itinerary
    When: I submit my name and
    payment information
    Then: I see a confirmation #
    

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54. Origin Dest Pass Date Name
    Atlanta Bahamas 1 Mar 15, 2014 Lynn
    Atlanta Bahamas 4 Mar 15, 2014 David
    Bahamas Atlanta 5 Mar 18, 2014 Diana
    Itinerary Payment confirmation
    Valid Good
    Valid Good
    Valid Failure
    Message Conf#
    Confirmation 000001
    Confirmation 000002, 000003, 000004, 000005
    “Please call”
    Then When Given
    

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55. What’s happening?
    

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56. How’d we get here?
    

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57. Understanding
    

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58. There is no
    difference between
    requirements and
    understanding
    

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59. – –
    Given
    You & Your condition
    What you do
    What you
    see
    When Then
    

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60. My Primary Sources
    "   Gojko Adzic BDD / Specification by Example
    gojko.net
    "   Liz Keogh BDD
    lunivore.com
    "   Dan North BDD & Crevasse of Doom
    dannorth.net
    

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61. Share & Tell
    This is licensed under Creative
    Commons Sharealike [CC BY 3.0]
    "  Please use it
    "  Please share it
    "  Please improve it
    "  As long as you credit me somewhere
    

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62. How to Improve Your
    Requirements
    with Tiny Stories
    ®
    Jeffrey Davidson
    twitter: @JeffreyGoodReq
    blog: goodrequirements.com
    email: jeffrey@davidson.net
    ProjectSummit * BusinessAnalystWorld | Philadelphia, PA | April 7, 2014
    

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