Finding the forest in the trees

ABSTRACT

While the iterative development approaches found in Agile Software Development fulfill the promise of working software each iteration, the task of choosing which software to build first can be formidable.This experience report discusses my team's experience working with a large healthcare company writing software for use in their hospital's newborn intensive care unit (NICU). The very large scope of this project and the urgent need for delivery made project release planning difficult. Focusing on capturing feature details in XP style user stories led to confusion about priorities and release strategy. Making good use of User Centered Design user role models and task models gave us the big picture we needed to un-stick the release planning process and effectively choose the bit of project scope we needed to focus on for our first and subsequent releases.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Elicitation methods (e.g., rapid prototyping, interviews, JAD)

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Methodologies (e.g., object-oriented, structured)

General Terms:
Design, Documentation, Human Factors, Management

Keywords:
agile software development, requirements, software release planning, user centered design