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Requirements-Led Project Management: Discovering David's Slingshot (paperback) 1st Edition

by Suzanne Robertson (Author), James Robertson (Author)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 9 ratings
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Requirements are a crucial ingredient of any successful project. This is true for any product--software, hardware, consumer appliance, or large-scale construction. You have to understand its requirements--what is needed and desired--if you are to build the right product. Most developers recognize the truth in this statement, even if they don't always live up to it.

Far less obvious, however, is the contribution that the requirements activity makes to project management. Requirements, along with other outputs from the requirements activity, are potent project management tools.

In Requirements-Led Project Management, Suzanne and James Robertson show how to use requirements to manage the development lifecycle. They show program managers, product and project managers, team leaders, and business analysts specifically how to:

  • Use requirements as input to project planning and decision-making
  • Determine whether to invest in a project
  • Deliver more appropriate products with a quick cycle time
  • Measure and estimate the requirements effort
  • Define the most effective requirements process for a project
  • Manage stakeholder involvement and expectations
  • Set requirements priorities
  • Manage requirements across multiple domains and technologies
  • Use requirements to communicate across business and technological boundaries

In their previous book, Mastering the Requirements Process, the Robertsons defined Volere--their groundbreaking and now widely adopted requirements process. In this second book, they look at the outputs from the requirements process and demonstrate how you can take advantage of the all-important links between requirements and project success.

Previous slide of product details
  1. ISBN-10
    032165904X
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0321659040
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Addison-Wesley Professional
  5. Publication date
    August 20, 2004
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    7.5 x 0.5 x 9.5 inches
  8. Print length
    352 pages
  9. See all details
Next slide of product details

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Requirements are a crucial ingredient of any successful project. This is true for any product--software, hardware, consumer appliance, or large-scale construction. You have to understand its requirements--what is needed and desired--if you are to build the right product. Most developers recognize the truth in this statement, even if they don't always live up to it.

Far less obvious, however, is the contribution that the requirements activity makes to project management. Requirements, along with other outputs from the requirements activity, are potent project management tools.

In Requirements-Led Project Management, Suzanne and James Robertson show how to use requirements to manage the development lifecycle. They show program managers, product and project managers, team leaders, and business analysts specifically how to:

  • Use requirements as input to project planning and decision-making
  • Determine whether to invest in a project
  • Deliver more appropriate products with a quick cycle time
  • Measure and estimate the requirements effort
  • Define the most effective requirements process for a project
  • Manage stakeholder involvement and expectations
  • Set requirements priorities
  • Manage requirements across multiple domains and technologies
  • Use requirements to communicate across business and technological boundaries

In their previous book, Mastering the Requirements Process, the Robertsons defined Volere--their groundbreaking and now widely adopted requirements process. In this second book, they look at the outputs from the requirements process and demonstrate how you can take advantage of the all-important links between requirements and project success.

About the Author

Suzanne Robertson and James Robertson have, over many years, helped hundreds of companies improve their requirements techniques and move into the fast lane of system development. Their courses and seminars on requirements, analysis, and design are widely praised for their innovative approach. The Robertsons are principals of the Atlantic Systems Guild, a well-known consultancy specializing in the human dimensions of complex system building. They are also the coauthors of Requirements-Led Project Management (Addison-Wesley, 2005).

James Robertson and Suzanne Robertson have, over many years, helped hundreds of companies improve their requirements techniques and move into the fast lane of system development. Their courses and seminars on requirements, analysis, and design are widely praised for their innovative approach. The Robertsons are principals of the Atlantic Systems Guild, a well-known consultancy specializing in the human dimensions of complex system building. They are also the coauthors of Requirements-Led Project Management (Addison-Wesley, 2005).

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Addison-Wesley Professional; 1st edition (August 20, 2004)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 352 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 032165904X
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0321659040
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.41 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.5 x 0.5 x 9.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 9 ratings

About the authors

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  1. James Robertson

    James Robertson

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    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    James Robertson is a problem solver, consultant, teacher, photographer, author and practitioner of systems and software solutions. He is co-author of seven books and the Volere approach to requirements engineering. He is a principal of The Atlantic Systems Guild, a think tank known for its innovative approach to systems engineering.

    See more on the author's page
  2. Suzanne Robertson

    Suzanne Robertson

    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    Suzanne Robertson is a principal of the Atlantic Systems Guild. Suzanne is co-author of Mastering the Requirements Process (Addison-Wesley 2012), several other books and many articles about the socio-technical aspects of requirements and business analysis. Current work focuses on the integration of stakeholders, goals and scope and the use of iterative requirements techniques. The product of this research is Volere, a complete requirements process and template for discovering, understanding and communicating requirements and for specifying requirements. She was the founding editor of the Requirements column in IEEE Software magazine.

    See more on the author's page
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Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
We don’t use a simple average to calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star. Our system gives more weight to certain factors—including how recent the review is and if the reviewer bought it on Amazon. Learn more
9 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Tezza
3.0 out of 5 stars Somewhat Misleading Title
Reviewed in the United States on February 25, 2005
Verified Purchase
The title suggests that you will understand how a project can be managed from a requirements perspective. In actual fact the book is a treatise on how to create and manage software requirements during the requirements gathering phase of a project.

The book touches on important aspects of creating and managing software requirements such as writing testable requirements, creating use cases, drawing context diagrams, etc.

Some of the statements within the book are questionable. For instance (I'm paraphrasing), a requirement is not a requirement if you can't afford to build it. I've found that prejudicing requirements sessions with early budget and technical constraints is, at best, counter-productive.

Also, the discussion of the change control over requirements (and it's impact on the design, test plans, construction deliverables) is given short shrift within this text. The suggestion is made that if requirements were well done to begin with, there wouldn't be changes. Surely better requirements provide better requirements stability, but any project would benefit by a fairly robust requirements-led change control process.

The bottom line is this is a good text on software requirements and related practices, but not a classic text. For that you may have to look elsewhere.
9 people found this helpful
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Jack D. Herrington
4.0 out of 5 stars Good wheat, but lots of chaff
Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2005
There is some great content in this book, and the writing style is fun and engaging. But at the same time the book often goes here and there with lots of extraneous information, which while interesting, is also distracting.

The book covers conventional project management in a compelling and interesting way, and offers practical experienced based insights. Based on that I would give it five stars. The centering of the management process around requirements is a great idea. And the use of lo-fi prototypes is genius. So there is great content in here. But, unfortunately the distracting content and the sub-par quality of the illustrations leads me to give it a four out of five.

Still, if you are looking for a way to break out of the mold of your current development process. And you are looking for something that could lead to a more compelling product design for your customer. You may find the answer you are looking for in this book.
4 people found this helpful
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JC
4.0 out of 5 stars Usefull resources on a dry topic
Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2005
The process of aquiring and implementing the requirements for any project can be difficult. To read a book on the subject can be worse. This title succeeds where others fail. It is full of usefull resources and practical examples.

Project management and development is more an exercise is psychology than architecture. The Robertsons are aware of this and build their methods around human interaction.

I'm glad I read it. I learned quite a bit. The other books reccomended throughout this title are a great find and the recipe for the perfect dry martini is in fact quite accurate.

Jean-Charles

[...]
5 people found this helpful
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Earl Beede
3.0 out of 5 stars Not Bad but Not Great
Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2004
This is a decent book on using software requirements to help center and guide the running software projects. The Robertsons break no new ground here that wasn't probably better explained in their "Mastering the Requirements Process" for the requirements aspects of the book. As a project management book, I think that requirements are important but so are many things in running a project. I have found the Robertsons approach a bit too simplistic and I think that shows on the project management side as well.

The key message here is that if you get the requirements right, the project will fall into place and run much better. Requirements are key to getting good estimates, scheduling, aligning stakeholders, testing, etc. Well this is true, but hard. The Robertsons talk Agile talk but don't do the Agile walk. One of the keys to Agile is that full, complete, or even mostly complete requirements are a myth. Learn a little, build a little. The Robertsons change that to learn a lot, build a little. Not quite the same. I personally agree that we should learn more about the problem space of a software project than what some Agile methods call for. Then again, I don't reference Beck and Folwer as much as the Robertsons do.

What I personally am having difficulty doing is agreeing to the Robertsons advice to "invent" requirements. To me this is a slippery slope not worth going down. I think the requirements analyst's job is to fully understand the business problem space, perhaps better than the stakeholders themselves. I would like to leave it to the designers to invent the solutions. Sometimes that is the same person and that is OK by me. However, I think as an activity list, they should be different categories.

So, if you have read "Mastering the Requirements Process" and you are primarily interested in requirements techniques, there isn't much need to buy this book. If you are into project management and want a different viewpoint from many of the PM books out there, this may work for you.
24 people found this helpful
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Lennart Schoug
3.0 out of 5 stars A good overview book
Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2006
I think this is a book for persons wanting a subject overview. It contains a lot of discussions but, in my opinion, too few practical rules.
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Top reviews from other countries

TomA
5.0 out of 5 stars Living by their creed
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 13, 2009
Verified Purchase
In their highly successful book 'Mastering The Requirements Process' Robertson and Robertson spent, amongst many other excellent subject areas, considerable time on the concept of re-usable requirements. They are masters of this practice. This book is the proof.

Both books are excellent value for money.

You only need one of them.

As I write, I am 60 pages in. I have yet to find any fresh material that was not covered in 'Mastering The Requirements Process'

I'll persevere though; as the first book was so good. A little reinforcement and altered perspective never did any harm. who knows, perhaps I will develop fresh insights!
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