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John N - Professional Profile



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This member has not yet provided a Biography. Assume it's interesting and varied, and probably something to do with programming.

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GeneralGroundbreaking is less fun than it sounds Pin
John N6-Dec-04 19:24
John N6-Dec-04 19:24 
GeneralIn-place merge-sort Pin
John N23-Sep-04 12:56
John N23-Sep-04 12:56 
GeneralAll-In-One Pin
John N25-Aug-04 19:19
John N25-Aug-04 19:19 
GeneralAre our computers too good? Pin
John N23-Aug-04 15:52
John N23-Aug-04 15:52 
GeneralTurn the handle faster Pin
John N18-Aug-04 14:46
John N18-Aug-04 14:46 
GeneralIncremental Requirements Pin
John N17-Aug-04 15:00
John N17-Aug-04 15:00 
The one thing that can exponentially expand the schedule and/or budget of a software project is incremental requirements. That is, getting your requirements just a little bit at a time.

Some clients will be of the (deluded) opinion that they are doing you a favour by passing on requirements bit by bit. This opinion comes from the idea that it's easier to handle them if there are only a few at any given time to concentrate on. The huge problem is that this forces design into faulty guesswork and means errors will be discovered at a much later stage than would otherwise be possible.

For this reason, and a few others, I recommend briefing your clients before getting any requirements from them. Let them know about how a software project works. They should know enough that their costs are minimised if they tell you everything they can in the most explicit and specific manner possible. Let them know that they can assume nothing. Tell them, in the nicest possible way, that if it's not in the requirements document then it's not getting built or that it will cost more in time and money.

The other thing your client needs to know is that it's not really simple to "just change it". Software can be a tricky thing to change, especially when the users are thinking in terms of a magical "concept system" into which they can plug a new concept with minimal effort. Let them know that, once it's being coded, a new concept needs to be inserted upstream and invalidates much of the work that was proceeding.

Despite your best efforts, your clients will leave things out of their requirements, assume others and want to add still more at a later date. This is why planning for change is important, but that's a topic for another day.

John N

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