Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips When we build systems, build them to do and have no more and no less than we intend. A few pseudo definitions: The users says, “I want a system that does this and that is and like this and that.” The builders say among themselves, “We can do those things and a […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Find the right question. The answer will direct efforts. That is pretty basic, but it seems to work. The purpose of this blog post is… Well, let me struggle with the rest of that sentence. In my struggles, let me find the right question. How about, “Why would anyone read this?” or […]

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by Dwayne Phillips This is yet another fundamental to providing systems that delight users. Have we validated that we verified before vacation? Or is it the other way around? There was a time when verification and validation were so commonly used that we called it “V&V.” Then we wanted independent persons to perform V&V so […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I take the time to describe an old tool that helps us do what is asked. There is room for doing more, but we should at least do what is asked. There is an old tool called a compliance matrix. For mathematicians, I apologize for the word “matrix” as this is a […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Doing something that goes beyond what is required often leads to discovery, and discovery may be a wonderful unintended result. Many years ago (in the last century), I was involved in an upgrade to an existing system. There were new requirements that required new capabilities. Some of the computing hardware was to […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we find a small shiny object that we R E A L L Y want. Then we go about finding problems that it will solve. Yikes. Here is the traditional or accepted way to solve a problem: State the problem State several solutions to the problem Pick the “best” solution Go […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The humble light bulb reminds us that we want good things, but “good” changes depending on the person and the purpose. The light bulb is going to save the planet. Perhaps destroy it. I confuse the two sometimes. The incandescent bulb is inefficient. It is if we are considering the amount of […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Makers of systems might consider an old, old list when considering the -ilities or non-functional requirements. “This system is fool proof!” said one person. The other person replied, “I know some pretty big fools.”—paraphrase from something written somewhere at sometime. Considering the “fool proof” system brought to my mind a few questions […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Take care how we state the requirements for a database. A spot on the floor often meets the requirements. I attended a meeting recently wherein a senior official with a long, impressive title stood in front of a crowd of several hundred persons and spoke at length (three hours). A major part […]

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by Dwayne Phillips We often use a simple yet silly algorithm for ranking requirements. It is easy. I guess that is why we use it. We have a lot of work to do. We have more work than resources. Hence, we have to rank requirements to work the more important ones first. Well, maybe we […]

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