Driving better requirements through DevOps

Driving Better RequirementsThrough DevOps

Cecile Hurley – Customer Success Manager

Welcome to the Webinar

Driving better requirements – Through DevOps

[email protected] Twitter:@cecile_hurley


Housekeeping

Let’s keep this interactive!• Use the control panel to ask questions• Can you see & hear us?• enter your name & city to confirm

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DevOps – Evolution not revolution

Software & Services to design & document IT and Business Processes


Recognized by… Used by…


What is Navvia

Navvia is a Powerful and easy-to-use tool to design & document processes & capture requirements

RACI

Auto generate and synchronize over 17 different process artifacts

Process Guides

Technical Requirements

And more…

Create

CEO and Co-founder

David Mainville


[email protected] @mainville


“The failure rate of IT projects is appalling…… despite more than 50 years of history and countless

methodologies, advice and books, projects keep failing... irrespective of the methodology — waterfall or agile”

Gartner – October 2014

Problem Statement


And the type of project doesn’t matter…


So why do we keep failing? … thoughts?


Some common reasons for failure• Automating overly complex business processes

• Too much project bureaucracy / too little planning

• Lack of accountability & governance

• Lift & Shift of the old system

• The fallacy of “out of the box”

• Scope creep & and “finish at any cost” attitude • Brooks Law: When a product is crashing, burning and delayed, throwing more people at it only

makes it crash harder, burn faster, and be more delayed. – Fred Brooks: The Mythical Man-Month

Why do we keep failing?


The #1 Reason Projects Fail - Poor Requirements

Why do we keep failing?

There is a disconnect between what the Business wants & needs and what is

delivered as a solution.


Is there a better path to business value?

DevOps


Defining DevOps

Source: DevOps Reference Architecture, Source: IBM

Steer

Develop/Test

Deploy

OperateDevOps

Continuous Business Planning

Collaborative Development

ContinuousTesting

Continuous Release& Deployment

Continuous Monitoring

Continuous Customer Feedback &

Optimization

Continuous Feedback


Defining DevOps

• Steer• Document business objectives desired in business terms• Identify all the roles/personas involved with the software• Understand the broad scope of the project

• Develop• Create stories that describe the business objectives into role based features• Translate the stories into technical terms developers can work with• Group requirements into short sprints / validate results with the business• Create test scripts based on stories

• Deploy / Operate• Validate the new features and obtain customer feedback


Start with the business requirement


But don’t go down the rabbit hole


Understand the roles / personas

• Identify all the potential users of the system• Group the users into specific roles / personas

• Fictitious users based on your knowledge of real users• Personalize the personas – as real as possible

• One time or casual customer vs. user

• Ensure all your personas are considered when developing requirements• You are not at end-of-job until all personas are addressed

• Capture role / persona requirements in ”stories”• Roles / personas, and associated stories, are critical for

testing


As a <role>, I want <feature>, so that <benefit>.

• Here are a couple of examples:

• As an unauthenticated user, I want to see the login link in the upper right hand corner of each page, so I don’t need to navigate back to the homepage or some account page to login.

• As a sales associate, I want to be able to pull up my current active leads, deals and tasks on my iPhone, so that I can still follow up with clients and update deals status while traveling.

• Don’t forget the benefit – it addresses the business outcome

Credit:DanNorthandChris Stevenson’s storyframework.

Build user stories


Tying it all together

Business Outcomes

Roles / Personas

Role based Stories(epics)

Detailed Requirements(sprints)

Streamline Ordering Process

Online Shopper Agent Supervisor

The Online Shopper purchases items with a single click so they can save time & effort

The detailed technical requirements needed to fulfill the story e.g. Credit card on file…

Manager

Drive more sales / recommend items

Fewer abandoned carts

Role based story 2

Role based story 3

Detailed requirement

Detailed requirement


IT projects fail regardless of the methodology

It’s not the methodology – but how you practice it


Practicing DevOps

Source: DevOps Reference Architecture, Source: IBM

Steer

Develop/Test

Deploy

OperateDevOps

Continuous Business Planning

Collaborative Development

ContinuousTesting

Continuous Release& Deployment

Continuous Monitoring

Continuous Customer Feedback &

Optimization

Continuous Feedback


Takeaways

• Focus on business outcomes / not technical specifications• You don’t need to capture all requirements at the get-go

• Have a high-level plan and let it evolve collaboratively

• Collaborate and Communicate• A discussion is worth more than a document• Constantly validate requirements (show and tells)• Get the business involved with the developers throughout

• Identify your roles / personas• Build outcome based (benefits) stories

• Which in turn lead to technical specifications• Build a realistic plan that addresses governance and accountability


Product Demo

Navvia Process Designer

Thank-you

David Mainville [email protected] Twitter: @Mainville

Driving better requirements through DevOps

Software

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