Requirements | ADC West

Tutorials

Rob Myers, Agile Institute

Mon, 06/02/2014 - 1:00pm

Test-driven development (TDD) is a powerful technique for combining software design, unit testing, and coding in a continuous process to increase reliability and produce better code design. Using the TDD approach, developers write programs in very short development cycles. The developer first writes a failing automated test case that defines a new function or improvement, then produces code to pass that test, and finally refactors the new code to acceptable standards. The developer repeats this process many times until the behavior is complete and fully tested.

TL Get the Requirements Right―The First Time

Tim Lister, Atlantic Systems Guild, Inc.

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 1:00pm

One group—customers, users, and business—need a software system to help them work more efficiently or make more money, but they don’t know how to build it. Another group—software developers and testers—know how to build the system, but they don’t know what it is supposed to do. Bridging this gap is where requirements—the work products describing the system accurately and concisely while at the same time not missing important customer and user needs—are essential.

Ellen Gottesdiener, EBG Consulting

Tue, 06/03/2014 - 1:00pm

Engaged and passionate product owners balance strategic and tactical activities to ensure that the right product is built—and built right. Yet how do these product owners guide planning toward longer-term goals while also ensuring that requirements are sufficiently understood for development and delivery? Join Ellen Gottesdiener as she shares techniques for setting context and collaboratively establishing a shared understanding of requirements. Discover methods to envision the product and identify the stakeholders and their value considerations.

Keynotes

K2 For Maximum Awesome

Joe Justice, Scrum, Inc

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 10:15am

An agile hardware and engineering company of 500 collaborators in twenty countries, Team WIKISPEED uses test-first development practices, is run by Scrum teams, and produces road legal cars, micro-houses, and social-good projects. Joe Justice shares how their 100-MPG road car was created in just three months through object-oriented design, iterative development, and agile project management.

Michael Mah, QSM Associates, Inc.

Thu, 06/05/2014 - 8:30am

Agile has not only gone mainstream, it’s gone global. Data on agile team performance, time-to-market, and quality have emerged in the past decade. In 2012, a group of Columbus, Ohio, companies—business, IT, and financial services firms—participated in the first ever “Columbus Agile vs. the World” study. They collected velocity, schedule, effort, staffing, and quality data which were compared against QSM’s Software Lifecycle Management (SLIM) database. Analysis revealed delivery was 31 percent faster with 75 percent fewer defects than industry norms. Enter Munich, Germany.

K4 Producing Product Developers

David Hussman, DevJam

Thu, 06/05/2014 - 3:45pm

Many teams and organizations have found agile methods help them produce more. Where critical thinking is alive, a more important question arises: Are we producing the right thing? Even though agile tools and processes have helped produce more, they often fail to help us produce the right product, change our focus to product over process, or improve product learning.

Concurrent Sessions

AW4 Patterns for Effective Use Cases: Unleashing Your System's Value

Steve Adolph, BootStrap Agile

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 12:45pm

Use cases are a powerful tool for modeling how a system delivers value by telling stories about how actors interact with it. User stories are an excellent tool for delivering a flow of value. Together, they offer an excellent strategy for modeling and delivering value. However, writing good use cases, like good user stories, is difficult. Steve Adolph presents pattern that can help use case writers and reviewers know what makes a good use case and judge their quality.

Diane Zajac-Woodie, Erie Insurance

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 2:15pm

As companies introduce agile practices, the business analyst (BA) role is often left by the wayside. The BA title doesn’t exist in Scrum and other agile implementations, leaving many BAs wondering where—or if—they fit in. But fear not! The skills of a good BA are even more valuable in an agile environment. Diane Zajac-Woodie tells the tale of a new and struggling agile team, with no formal training, a resistant corporate culture, and unwilling team members. Diane shares how this team benefited from the communication, collaboration, and facilitation skills of an experienced BA.

David Hawks, Agile Velocity

Wed, 06/04/2014 - 3:45pm

Too many organizations focus on maximizing output and often miss delivering the right product. Studies show more than 60 percent of system features are rarely—or never—used. You may deliver a pile of features, but if they aren’t being used, does it really matter how well or fast you do it? To deliver the right outcomes, you need to discover your customers’ real needs and validate your assumptions as early as possible. This means completing an early version of your product so you can begin testing, validating, and improving.