Gathering Project Requirements
The wrong way to gather project requirements is bottom up planning, where the project manager talks to people and makes a long laundry list of "requirements." This is similar to talking to children and gathering their Christmas wish list to send to Santa. The whole idea behind requirements is not to identify everything everybody wants. Rather, PMs need to identify those business achievements that are required to deliver the project's measured business result.
Watch the Video Q&A Session on gathering requirements. It's an excerpt from our just released Video Book: Project Basics.
Best regards,
Dick Billows, PMP, GCA
Labels: Project requirements
posted by Dick Billows, PMP, GCA @ 5:03 AM
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3 Comments:
I liked the analogy of crossing river. Concept of HLA and MOS is very useful, one other example that I used to explain the concept to my team is building a house. Foundation, Walls and Roof, Electric, Plumbing etc each with its own duration, budget and outcome. MOS being the Building of a house.
A very nice and helpful presentation.
Regards,
How can a project be successful it the end users are not provided with a set of tools or processes to complete their work? I would hope that a measure of success means that those who produce the work can elaborate on whether or not a new solution meets their needs. And shouldn't you gather and understand these needs up front? I have seen numerous projects where huge sums of money was thrown at software solutions that could not perform required functions of various business units. By having a bottom up approach, these requirements would be known up front and any chosen solution must deliver that functionality.
Great website! While it may be difficult or impossible to use the bottom up approach I suggest in some cases where it is possible it may result in a better ending. Why? because in my 35 years work life in technical and sales roles in USA, UK but mainly New Zealand, I've been amazed at the contribution and amount of knowledge about the organisation lower level employees can make. Conversely, Middle management after a few years loose touch with the coal face and can block ideas and people under them to ensure the safety of their own jobs. Some even create most of the problems so they can solve them and show they are needed.Unfortunately it is these people who are the ones giving the help to the PM's.
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