Cats and Lassos

Why didn't I think of that?

An elegantly simple idea I wish I'd come up with: Brainwriting kicks brainstorming's ass.

Map Your Mind...And Your Apps Will Follow*

*with apologies to George Clinton

Someone up the chain of command recognized a problem, or a competitor is eating your lunch technologically and you have to catch up, or an executive read about some boffo new technology in an in-flight magazine and wants one of his own. In any case, they slapped the "project" label on it, and now it's your problem. You have, if you're lucky, a sketchy list of things it needs to do, a timeline, maybe a budget. Problem is, no one really seems to know what this thing will look like when it's done, or what it must and must not do. You keep having conversations like "well, we've always..." or, "can we < insert incredibly-detailed spec > ". You need scope, and you need it fast.

Mind Mapping isn't in the BABOK and isn't a part of the standard BA toolkit. But it's a helpful way to jumpstart a project and it can help your team to begin to visualize the end product. And after project initiation, mind mapping can help you choreograph the complex dance among artifacts as you proceed through requirements gathering.

What's in your meeting toolkit?

• Garbage Can: I'm playing with the whole Agile travel light with disposable models concept. Toting materials to requirements sessions in a small galvanized trash can serves as a visible reminder that models are generally transient.
• Red cards: I learned this from Ellen Gottesdeiner; give everyone in the meeting a red card and encourage them to flash it whenever they think a discussion has gone on long enough or the topic needs to move on. Power to the people.
• Personae: if your project is using them, these guys should be required attendees at any session. 
• Clock: start on time, end on time. Keep to the agenda. (Unless you want ppl to hate you). I like Big Time because I can project it on the wall where everyone can see it. 
• Name tents
• Cocktail Napkins: Good for brainstorming. And mopping up coffee.
• Cornell note pages
• Shoe/footprint: Corny but useful way of depicting and tracking the project scope.
• Legos: Developers like to play with them.

Scope: now you see it...now you don't...

Scope creep is insidious--so sneaky that it assumes a menacing personality of its own (beware The Scope Creep, my child, which carries off innocent projects in the dead of night...) Defining a project by what's out of scope is an effective strategy to turn requirements sessions on their heads. Explicitly and thoroughly  listing "anti-requirements" can surface important and potentially contentious issues earlier rather than later; it's amazing how stating what's not included can provoke discussion and reduce surprise. Draw a Rubin's Vase: describe the black in-scope space, and then shift perspective to see the white space and what's hidden there.

Box factory

Better brainstorming isn't a question of thinking outside the box... construct a different box or several to give your brainstorming sessions some structure and direction.

(We as a culture have really done the "outside the box" thing to death, haven't we? I think I'll go with "think outside the paper bag" from now on.)