Product requirements? Ideas on file. In a filing cabinet

Conflict? Confusion? Nasty surprises from a software delivery? Get your requirements from everyone under the sun. Prioritise them. Publish them. Be real about Scrum and Waterfall. Show everyone what’s happening for real.

Full Irish

I used to believe in the bacon and eggs analogy for balancing stakeholder wants and needs, eliminating, and making change happen. You know the one: The pig is committed. The hen is involved. Focus on the pig.

A familiar story of plenty of wrongly invested people with all the buzzwords and other people’s money ensuring you know they think they’re important

Reality bites

It doesn’t work in practice. Everyone thinks they’re important sizzling rashers (pigs).

We can guess what’s behind the latest Irish public sector “digital transformation” disaster. It's a familiar story of plenty of wrongly invested people with all the buzzwords and other people’s money ensuring you know they think they’re important. There is a deficit of procurement rigour, problem-solving as rationale, collaborative design, transparency of requirements, change management, acceptance requirements, and no roadmap for the rollout. God only knows.

File under idea

Here’s a lesson from Ireland’s Donegal Catch advertisement. Put everyone’s ideas on file, in a filing cabinet. Chickens love it.

On file. On a filing cabinet.

Try this

• Gather your requirements from the pigs and the chickens—all of the requirements, even the daft ones.
• Create a backlog, or list if you like.
• Have a prioritisation system on the list.
• Add everyone’s name into the backlog.
• Publish the lot as a backlog, weighted.
• Maintain the backlog, and publish updates.
• Show progress by demoing real software increments, not PowerPoint presentations — the last refuge of the non-deliverable.

I find when people see their special idea visible with their name beside them, they’re happy to let designers and implementers get on with it. If they ask, you can show them they’re on the list. Chickens fly off.

It’s accepted that a large backlog can be an anti-pattern for product owners, but regardless of size, ensure you maintain the backlog. The purpose here is to keep the chickens clucking somewhere else.

bA tool like Jira facilitates the process. Use Excel if you like.

Sample backlog in Jira. You can play with it here.

You don’t need to be a Scrum Master or Product Owner for this. Use the bits that work for you. The reality in public sector (most?) software implementation is that it’s WWABOATI (Waterfall With a Bit of Agile Thrown In). Thanks, Limerick’s Action Point (now Viatel) for that.