03028 Clarifying the Why of Requirements

(Today’s issue has a fun challenge question that demonstrates just how much the software industry has changed in the past 20 years. See Can You Answer This? below.)
Requirements are the fuel that Product Managers produce to feed the company’s software development engine. As part of refining the quality of those requirements, it’s helpful to understand [...]

03027 Requirements: Envisioning the Product

With product requirements, one temptation a Product Manager has to fight is the desire to jump into the details. You already know what you want, lord knows you’ve heard what people want often enough, someone’s got to actually put them on paper, and that someone is you, so you might as well get started.
But there’s [...]

03012 Requirements 201: The Requirements Process

One thing I associate with product management is the need to keep marching through the many efforts required to design and build software, then launch it in the market — no matter how difficult the times. And so we have this week’s issue, as scheduled.
Respectfully,
Jacques Murphy,

Feeling sad for the people of Iraq,
Grieving for the [...]

03011 Requirements 101: The Requirements Document

Today’s issue is the first of two topics covering product requirements.
Requirements, as the fuel that powers your company’s software development engine, are an essential part of product management. Without this fuel, development doesn’t happen. Too little or too much, too sparse or too rich — all lead to a poorly running engine. It is essential [...]

03002 Requirements: How Much Is Enough?

Requirements are the challenge every Product Manager faces. Each software company manages to deal with the requirements headache more or less successfully, and headache - or heartache - is exactly how many people look upon the whole process.
Yet viewing requirements as a necessary evil can get you into trouble. After all, requirements are how your [...]

02002 Requirements: From Hype-ful to Helpful

Software requirements are arguably the single biggest source of heartache for Product Managers and anybody else working to move a software product forward. Requirements definition is every Product Manager’s dreaded opportunity to wrestle with all the contention, politics, and conflicting viewpoints an organization has to offer.
Not only is formulating and prioritizing requirements the essential starting [...]