RE: Business Requirements

["James Barrow" <vrfour -at- verizon -dot- net>]

>John Posada said:
>>Jim Barrow wrote: 
>>>John Posada said:
>>>
>>>I don't consider Busness Requirements (BR) as important as Functional
>>>Requirements (FS), except to write the FS, and if whoever is writing the
>>>FS
>> 
>>Doesn't this depend on the audience?  Developers really don't care about
>>'why' an application needs to be developed.  Maybe thorough
>>
>And I don't either. By the time I'm involved, it has been decided that
>there is a need for the application. At that point, I wan to start being
>involved. I want to be at the meetings before coding has started, while
>they are figuring out what features to code. However, I don't say much at
>those meetings, not yet. At this point, I'm just a chicken...I'm just there
>to get a feeling on the scope...how much resources will I need and how big
>an effort is this, because I'm doing my own planning for the parts coming
>where I'm the pig.? 

It sounds like you write out of a silo.  Remember, in my case there is
absolutely *no* documentation.  None.  I can interview users and managers
and come up with great functional requirements and specs, but if the
business units ask me where the FRs came from, I'm (we're) dead in the
water.

>>Business units (stakeholders), on the other hand, want to see this same
>>information one level higher.  They don't want to read how the A2 app does
>>what it does, they want to know why they've invested their resources in
>>the
>
>They're big boys and they've done this before...lt them figure that
>out..they don't need my help.

This is how we got into the situation we're in currently.

>>The functional requirement of this would be "The A1 system will provide
>>FTP functionality..."
>
>Not the functional specs that I'll accept and sign off on. The FS that I'll
>accept will say how our application performs FTP. Through a CLI? Through a
>GUI? Security and credentials? What get's FTP'd? etc.
>
>I may not care too much about BRs, but I'm a prick when it comes to what
>I'll accept in an FS from which I need to work if I'm not writing it.. 

Well, of course not, but for the sake of brevity in this post...

- Jim

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