Requirements Elicitation—the Social Media Way
- 1. BW10 Concurrent Session 11/13/2013 3:45 PM "Requirements Elicitation—the Social Media Way" Presented by: Stefano Rizzo Polarion Software Brought to you by: 340 Corporate Way, Suite 300, Orange Park, FL 32073 888‐268‐8770 ∙ 904‐278‐0524 ∙ sqeinfo@sqe.com ∙ www.sqe.com
- 2. Stefano Rizzo Polarion Software In a career spanning some twenty years, Stefano Rizzo has been a methodology consultant, a pre-sales engineer, an IT researcher, a university professor, VP of R&D for a large consortium, Regional Sales Director for a software company, and CEO of two software development organizations. With his broad experience in the Application Lifecycle Management arena, he has been leading Product Management for Polarion Software’s product lines from its first release in 2005 until 2010. In his current SVP Strategy & Business Development role, in addition to defining corporate vision, he leads several research projects in the ALM and PLM fields.
- 3. 07/09/13 Polarion Software® Requirements Elicitation The Social Media Way Stefano Rizzo SVP Strategy and Business Development Boston, November 13th, 2013 • Our Company 1
- 4. 07/09/13 Overview History Privately held company founded in 2004, First product release 2005 2 Polarion Software® Polarion Polarion Software® 5 www.polarion.com 3 In one pill www.polarion.com 2
- 5. 07/09/13 Overview Polarion in Numbers 1,000,000 + users 250+ Fortune 1000 deployments Polarion Software® Overview Polarion Software® 150+ 10,000+ Registered community members extensions www.polarion.com 5 Global Presence www.polarion.com 6 3
- 6. 07/09/13 Overview Polarion Software® Achievements Polarion Software® Ovum ALM Decision Matrix www.polarion.com Polarion Customers www.polarion.com 8 4
- 7. 07/09/13 • Scrum @ Polarion Software Why Scrum? The promise – Shorten time to release • …and ensure releases – Transparency to management/customers • …and release what’s expected – Faster reaction • to market needs • to users’ feedback • to the change – Simplify synchronization of distributed teams – Easier releasing to the market • Lower effort to stabilization, less things to test – Flexibility in prioritization, risk reduction Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 5
- 8. 07/09/13 But Scrum… Known Issues – Has proven its benefits in small projects • Our main project is a huge one, lasting since 2004 – Frightens the board • Do we control costs and releases? – Gives power to the development team • Does it ensure traceability and accountability? – Needs the customer to be part of the team • Where will we sit 1.000.000 users? Polarion Software® Ke y ad issu d e tod ress we ay www.polarion.com • So, Scrum… 6
- 9. 07/09/13 Scrum in Polarion Software When? We moved to Scrum from a traditional Development process 6 years ago ! Polarion Software® www.polarion.com Scrum in Polarion Software How? • Polarion’s Iterative development has short iterations • 2 weeks, with meetings at the beginning and at the end of each iteration (called sprint in Scrum) Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 7
- 10. 07/09/13 Scrum in Polarion Software Polarion Software® We eat our own bread www.polarion.com Scrum in Polarion Software Backlogs • Product Backlog items • User Stories, described in a way that at least the idea behind each one is clear. – “The user must be able to reset the status of an item to the original one” (pretty good user story) – “Improve the performance of the product” (bad user story) • Business value for Backlog items • Each User Story must be valuable for the user • A good prioritization is critical to ensure the success of the project – Especially when you have two thousand candidates and the ability to implement 10-12 in a iteration Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 8
- 11. 07/09/13 Scrum in Polarion Software Our backlogs Every Backlog has an owner Backlog owners “play the user” into Sprint meetings Polarion Software® www.polarion.com Scrum in Polarion Software Polarion Software® Backlogs www.polarion.com 9
- 12. 07/09/13 Scrum in Polarion Software Polarion Software® www.polarion.com Scrum in Polarion Software Polarion Software® Project progress Release burndown www.polarion.com 10
- 13. 07/09/13 • Requirements? Requirements and Scrum User stories • The most difficult and critical job is to produce a good backlog of User Stories. – Altogether they cover the full product • very hard to ensure – They are flat and independent on each other! • Team work on the stories one after another – They must be small • so you need to break “big” features into smaller sub stories – thinking about user scenario for every small piece Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 11
- 14. 07/09/13 Requirements elicitation Road to user stories • So, provided that we cannot invite all our users to our meetings, we have Product Managers “playing the customer” • PMs derive User Stories from: – User Demand Management process • Mainly fed by Professional Services and Sales – Strategy meetings • Lot of ideas, often far from the ground… – Internal and customer surveys • “Why that button is not blue?” Polarion Software® Scrum is good in… www.polarion.com Benefits • Frequent and tangible results – Short iterations with visible improvements • Easy control over development activities – But this needs discipline and tools • Transparent project progress – But this needs a good backlog (i.e. good User Stories) Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 12
- 15. 07/09/13 Scrum needs… Implications • In order to run Scrum effectively you must consider to: – Keep iterations as short as possible (2 weeks max) – Invest in product management/requirement spec. • Definition of user stories is the critical bottleneck • Innovation happens outside the development team – Keep high motivation in the development team • In “traditional” development, developers are requested to invent a lot – with the shortfall that results could be different from what expected • With Scrum developers are told what to do precisely, so they could be frustrated Polarion Software® Requirements and Scrum www.polarion.com Your job • If you gather requirements for a SCRUM team you must consider that: – You are part of the Development Team, with them you share success and blame • User stories are discussed every day, not just at the beginning of the development • You must continuously try to find answers, examples, clarifications for developers – Your requirements must be decomposed into good user stories • Finding out a requirement is still the key, but taking it to its real essence is not an easy task Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 13
- 16. 07/09/13 • The Social way Before the Social way What were we lacking? • A million users but just few contacts – Pretty typical in B2B Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 14
- 17. 07/09/13 Before the Social way You get just… • Complains • Issues • Strong requests Polarion Software® Before the Social way www.polarion.com You miss (quite) completely • Appreciation • Small issues – like usability difficulties • Users’ “mood” Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 15
- 18. 07/09/13 Let’s try Social Polarion Software® Let’s try Social Which Social? www.polarion.com A Social place • Place vs. Channel – It was clear from the very beginning: it’s not a new communication channel – It’s a beer with friends Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 16
- 19. 07/09/13 Our experience How to start? • Start with user conference – Meeting each other helps engagement a lot • Create a community – With the social media that better fits your users • Enlarge the community – Drill down companies with contests, “tell a friend”, gadgets… – Put every employee you have in the community • Nurture the community – Post some useful content, every day at least!!! Polarion Software® www.polarion.com Our experience Reputation • Social is reputation – Can be good, can be bad Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 17
- 20. 07/09/13 Our experience Reputation • Reputation is an investment – For technology makers reputation was coming from the product – Now is the product + your employees talking with their customers • They will probably do it, anyhow – Better to give them time to do it and teach them how to do it – Nurture the community, every day if not every minute Polarion Software® Our experience www.polarion.com Which outcome? • A lot of material… – Unstructured – From generic to too specific • A lot of ideas… – Fuel for usability improvements – Clear understanding of most used and unused features Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 18
- 21. 07/09/13 Outcome How much data? • Can be too small… Polarion Software® Small data www.polarion.com Why? • In case of small feedback, answer to these questions: – Are we using the right medium? – Did we set the stage in the right way? – Are we using the right language? – Do we properly nurture the community? Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 19
- 22. 07/09/13 Outcome Big Data • Can be too big… Polarion Software® Big Data www.polarion.com How? • In case of too much data you need to invest into Big Data analysis. You will get: – Product improvements – Inspiration for your product strategy – Inspiration for your marketing strategy • You will not get – Innovation: “only” a fertile soil for innovative minds Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 20
- 23. 07/09/13 • The Polarion way Issues Popular media not always working • Selecting the right platform is critical – You should always use the platform of your users, not force them to use something else… – What do our customer and the customer of our customers use??? Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 21
- 24. 07/09/13 Social Polarion Social features in our product • Our typical users – System Engineers – Software Engineers – Business Analysts – Requirements Engineers and QA people • They normally don’t use popular social media to discuss about their job-related stuff – They use Polarion!!! – So we made our product more Social Polarion Software® Social Polarion Polarion Software® www.polarion.com Engage and collaborate www.polarion.com 22
- 25. 07/09/13 Social Polarion Polarion Software® Social Polarion Polarion Software® Approve and comment www.polarion.com Mobile www.polarion.com 23
- 26. 07/09/13 • Conclusions Lessons learned Results • Engage your users! – involvement of more stakeholders – better company reputation – ability to harvest unusual requirements and unsolicited feedback Polarion Software® www.polarion.com 24
- 27. 07/09/13 Lessons learned Benefits for us (you) • Improved release strategy • Improved product easiness of use Polarion Software® www.polarion.com • Questions? stefano.rizzo@polarion.com tw: steriz 25