A second complaint from my students (see yesterday’s post) is: “Management adds requirements to my project without asking me if I can still make the schedule and without taking anything away.\u00a0 All the time.”<\/p>\n
Of course, what’s “bad” about this behavior is not that requirements change: that’s expected: although there must be a limit.\u00a0 What’s “bad” is making the changes without a change management process.<\/p>\n
So, in class, first we’ll discuss the benefits of a change management process, from their (Engineering’s) <\/em>point of view:<\/p>\n \u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Allows impact to be assessed<\/p>\n \u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Allows effort estimates and schedules to be adjusted<\/p>\n \u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Provides a way to track cumulative impact of all changes, including all the little ones<\/p>\n \u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Provides an opportunity to negotiate requirement trade-offs to try to preserve the schedule<\/p>\n But, like I said before, it doesn’t do any good to sell Engineering on the benefits of process only to have Management say there’s no time or budget to put them in place, or to ignore them when they are in place.\u00a0 We have to sell the benefits of change management to Management and get them to respect the process once it’s in place.\u00a0 Here’s a start (I’m sure you can think of some of your own):<\/p>\n \u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Giving Engineering the time to think about the impacts of each change, as well as to provide a well-considered new estimate, will strengthen Engineering’s commitment to the new schedule.\u00a0 Otherwise, if changes are piled upon changes, Engineering will stop feeling that their schedule has any basis in reality, is garbage, and deserves to be ignored.\u00a0 It is a way to keep Engineering’s buy-in.<\/p>\n \u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Constant, small changes can sink a project (and you can show them how).\u00a0 Why would they want the project to fail?\u00a0 It’s not in their interest to promote “scope creep”.\u00a0 A change management process is a way of keeping track of the changes so that things don’t spiral out of control.\u00a0 It is a way for Management to maintain control of the project.<\/p>\n \u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A change management process includes updates to the written requirements, and since the written requirements will form the basis for the tests, Management can be confident that the testing will be complete, and there will be no surprises when the product gets to the customers.\u00a0 How else can Management be sure that everything was tested?<\/p>\n Management must be convinced that sneaking in changes without a process, without allowing Engineering to evaluate, estimate, or negotiate them, is not a Management strategy.\u00a0 It’s a death sentence for the project.\u00a0 And once they’re convinced, maybe they’ll think a change management process was their own idea: .<\/p>\n Anita Wotiz A second complaint from my students (see yesterday’s post) is: “Management adds requirements to my project without asking me if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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\nwww.duckpondsoftware.com<\/a>
\nInstructor, UCSC Extension, SEQ Program<\/a>
\nSoftware Requirements Engineering (next class Aug 2008)
\nSoftware Project Planning, Monitoring, and Management(next class Nov 2008)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"