How to Collect and Manage Requirements for Successful GIS Projects

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How to Collect and Manage Requirements for
Successful GIS Projects

• Matt Harman
• Mirjam Stadelmann

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Requirements

• Provide direction for program success

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Why Requirements are Important?

• Early mistakes lead to costly fixes

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Build for Value

• Requirements evolve over time

20 - Often or Always
64 - Rarely or Never

• Standish Group Study Reported at XP2002 by Jim
  Johnson, Chairman

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Where do Requirements fit?

• Waterfall implementation

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Where do Requirements fit?

• Agile implementation

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Where do Requirements fit?

• Source Vikas Thange Blog

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Types of Requirements

• Business, Functional/Technical, COTS

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So how do you get there.
Prioritize workflows
Assess business workflows
Discuss similar industries
Add Details
Create a plan
Conduct kickoff meeting
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Kickoff meeting
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Approach and Agenda
Kickoff meeting
Smaller working groups
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Similar industries what are the GIS Patterns
that apply
https//www.esri.com//media/Files/Pdfs/products/a
rcgis platform/architecting-the-arcgis-platform
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GIS Solutions
Meter Data Collection
Campus Navigation
Fire Hydrants
Building Permit Management
Cityworks Oklahoma
GISi Washington
SSP Innovations Tennessee
CityView Canada
Road Construction Planning
Work Orders
District Planning
Wilson Pym May Philippines
Isovist New Zealand
Trimble Illinois
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How to collect business needs
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Organization overview
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Focus on the business workflow
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(No Transcript)
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Water Department
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So what should be in your GIS Plan?
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Requirements and Analysis
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Next Steps How to add details to your business
requirements

• Evolutionary Refinement of Requirements

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User Story

• Simple, brief descriptions of functionality
• Primarily from a user (role) perspective
• Sized for planning
• Testable
• Why?

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As a role, I can feature so that reason
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Field Worker
Public Citizen
Real Estate Manager
Data Provider
Analyst
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User Stories

• Simple and concise

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User stories

• facilitate a conversation with the team

Development Lead
Product Owner
Hey! Something to look at, talk about, comment
on, react to
The team
Stakeholders
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User Stories

• Progressively decompose your stories

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Example Leak Management Isolation Trace

• Decomposing work into manageable pieces

Most Detailed Test Case Titles
Use Cases
Locate by address
Locate Leak
Locate with Map
User Story
As a Field Engineer I need to run an Isolation
Trace to identify network leaks, and improve the
quality of water service to all customers.
Pick Trace Starting Point
Select from map
Configure Options
Run Trace
Execute Trace
Save Trace
Field Crew Launch Mobile App Locate Leak Run
Isolation Trace Notify Customers Fix Leak
Display Trace Results
Trace Map
Summary Report
Detail Report
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User Stories

• Consider grouping them into themes

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Not always about a user

• Capture key concepts

As a user interface, I need to look like the
following image so that I can be intuitive to use
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Use Paper Cards

• Keep them simple and concise

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Keep user stories visible

• Focus of daily meetings

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Requirement Management Tools
Compare

• Licensed and Open Source

Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS)
Waffle.io
JIRA
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Requirements Process

• Things to avoid

• Avoid long lists of requirements
• Do not be judgmental
• Prepare for conflicting requirements
• Avoid requirements that are ambiguous
• Avoid requirements that describe HOW (unless you
  are using COTS approach)
• Dont forget to prioritize
• Requirements must have a reason

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Requirements

• THE most important part of a project

• Solid requirements gathering leads to successful
  projects
• Consider solution, COTS capabilities before
  collecting additional requirements
• Involve the right people in the process
• Pick a methodology that fits your project
• Focus on the level of detail that is appropriate
• Important to prioritize and allocate
• Invest plenty of time to secure customer approval

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References

• Agile Iterative Development A Managers Guide
  by Criag Larman, Addison-Wesley ,2003
• Software Requirements (2nd Edition) by Karl
  Wiegers, Microsoft Press, 2003
• Use Case Driven Object Modeling with UML by Doug
  Rosenberg and Matt Stephens, Apress, 2008
• Writing Effective User Cases, A Cockburn,
  Addison-Wesley, 2001
• Agile Development with ICONIX Process by Doug
  Rosenberg, Matt Stephens, and Mark Collins,
  Apress, 2005

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References
www.agilemanifesto.org http//alistair.cockburn.u
s/ http//www.iconixsw.com/ http//www.pmi.org/d
efault.aspx
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Where to go From Here?
Thursday Time Room
Establish an Initial Operating Capability for Your Organization 130-245pm 15B
The Power of Workforce Development A People Strategy for Organizations 130-245pm 17A
Web GIS Architecture Deployment Options 130-245pm Ballroom 06E
Architecting the ArcGIS Platform Best Practices 315-430pm 17A
Designing a Web GIS Security Strategy 315-430pm 14A
How to Collect and Manage Requirements for Successful GIS Projects 315-430pm 30E
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