Thursday, July 12, 2012

The Power of Negative Requirements

A requirement gathering typically focuses exclusively on what the product will do, how fast it will do it and the parameters in which it will operate. This is all important, but also, in my opinion, incomplete.

I like negative requirements because they stipulate specific features that a product or application will not provide. I find that by defining negative requirements a product development team and stakeholders can minimize confusion and the dreaded feature-creep. (There are enough stories of failed products and overwrought development teams to testify as to why it is not prudent to simply add a feature.)

When one puts a stake in the ground and states, the new product will not provide a specific feature and why, the conversation really gets interesting. From the development team's perspective, it helps to frame the product and handle change requests more effectively.

-Gary

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