TOP FIVE FRUSTRATIONS OF REQUIREMENTS +plus+ TIPS TO AVOID THEM

#2.FRUSTRATION:
DECISION REHASHING
Hosting endless meetings where half the time
is wasted revisiting old decisions or bringing
others up to speed.
We’ll admit this one drives us crazy. We dislike
meetings. But, we especially dislike meetings
that are monopolized by rehashing decisions
already made. “Why did we decide to change
the functionality of that feature?” “When did we
approve that?” “Bruce was out last week, can
we revisit the plan so he’s up to speed?” Painful,
inefficient, frustrating.
BE CLEAR
Provide full context of the decisions being made
so everyone understands the scope of the project
and why. People need clarity and understanding to
execute at their best.
This applies upstream to your stakeholders
and customers so they understand what they’re
getting and it applies downstream to your
design, development and QA teams so they know
exactly what to build and to test properly. As a
solution, new collaborative tools exist that will
help you capture the healthy debates and ongoing
discussions that naturally take place around
requirements, and they don’t require hosting
more meetings. People can add their feedback
anytime and see what others are saying to agree
or disagree, approve or reject, or propose edits to
refine the solution.
Also, the decisions that occur in meetings
aren’t easily tracked in documents and people’s
memories fade as time goes on. How many times
have you left a meeting feeling great, thinking
everyone is on the same page, only to find yourself
debating what the team decided a few weeks later?
If this is an issue for your organization, adopt a
new technique to capture decisions in line with
requirements, and make them easy for the team to
view anytime. This will eliminate ambiguity and
ensure that decisions about the project are crystal
clear.