Code Reading - How Write To Project Specs

Published Thursday, January 03, 2019

Learnings from @bobjnadler’s time at Siemens & Cyrus.

  • Helpful to have templates
  • Remember: questions > formatting

What is a spec?

Q: Technical spec? User stories? Diagrams?

A: Combination of several pieces of information, only some of which is technical.

Parts

Charter

  • Overview
  • Biz case
  • Goals
  • Requirements
  • Assumptions
  • Resources
  • Constraints
  • Risks
  • Decision makers: stakeholders, sponsor(s), manager(s)

Useful as an engagement offer, aka proposal for client

Project matrix:

  • Drivers for decision making
  • Cost vs. release date vs. feature set
Guiding Questions
  • What is the problem we’re trying to solve?
  • Who is this problem affecting? (scale, scope)
  • How is it affecting them? (impact)
  • What are known issues external to project that can affect drivers (resources, features, scope)?

Vision

  • More details on vision, customers, etc
  • High level features
  • Biz value analysis
Guiding Questions
  • How does this connect to biz goals?
  • Why is this project more relevant to others in terms of achieving those goals?
  • What evidence do we have that this will solve customers’ problems?
  • How will customers get work done without this project?
  • Why will customers use this project?
  • Who are the competitors and how will this project compare?
  • What solutions have been requested/suggested and why aren’t we doing that instead?
  • What’s out of scope for this project?

Spec

  • Stories with supporting info like:
    • UI mockups
    • Domain models
    • Activity models
    • Decision tables
    • Glossary
Guiding Questions
  • What ubiquitous language will the project use?
  • What technologies are currently in use? Are we bound to them?

Plan

  • Lifecycle, phases, approach (XP, scrum, etc)
  • Ground rules
  • Initial estimates
  • Plan for reporting

Example: project Summit where representative from all involved teams get together for a status update.

Guiding Questions
  • How will issues be tracked and fixed?
  • How will story completion be tracked?
  • What methods/strategies are used for estimating effort? timeline?
  • Estimates should be refined at regular intervals. What are those intervals?
  • Who do we need to report to?
  • What should those reports contain?
  • Testing plan?
  • Deployment plan?
  • Launch plan?
  • Education/training plan?

Risks

  • Anything that could impact success
Guiding Questions
  • What are likely ways this project will fail? (and how to avoid them)
  • What/who is this project depending on to succeed?
  • What/who is depending on this project to succeed?
  • What assumptions are being made that this project depends on?