Establishing the Product Vision and Project Scope

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88 Part II Software Requirements Development 3.3 Limitationsand Exclusions Defining the boundary between what's in and what's out is a way to manage scope creep and customer expectations. List any product capabilities or characteristics that a stakeholder might anticipate but that are not planned for inclusion in the product or in a specific release. 4. Business Context This section summarizes some of the project's business issues, including profiles of major stakeholder categories and management's priorities for the project. 4.1 Stakeholder Profiles Stakeholders are the individuals, groups, or organizations who are actively involved in a project, are affected by its outcome, or are able to influence its outcome (Project Management Institute 2000; Smith 2000). The stakeholder profiles describe different categories of customers and other key stakeholders for this project. You needn't describe every stakeholder group, such as legal staff who must check for compliance with pertinent laws. Focus on different types of customers, target market segments, and the different user classes within those segments. Each stakeholder profile should include the following information: • The major value or benefit that the stakeholder will receive from the product and how the product will generate high customer satisfaction. Stakeholder value might include :::1 Improved productivity. u Reduced rework. u Cost savings. :..l Streamlined business processes. :..l Automation of previously manual tasks. c..J Ability to perform entirely new tasks. Q Compliance with pertinent standards or regulations. '.J Improved usability compared to current products. • Their likely attitudes toward the product. • Major features and characteristics of interest. • Any known constraints that must be accommodated.
Chapter 5 Establishing the Product Vision and Project Scope 89 4.2 Project Priorities To enable effective decision making, the Stakeholders must agree on the project's priorities. One way to approach this is to consider the five dimensions of a software project: features (or scope ), quality, schedule, cost, and staff (Wiegers 1996a). Each dimension fits in one of the following three categories on any given project: A constraint A limiting factor within '>vhich the project manager must operate A drlver A significant success objective with limited flexibility for adjustment A degree of freedom A factor that the project manager has some latitude to adjust and balance against the other dimensions The project manager's goal is to adjust those factors that are degrees of freedom to achieve the project's success drivers within the Iimits imposed by the constraints. Not all factors can be drivers, and not all can be constraints. The project manager needs some degrees of freedom to be able to respond appropriately when project requirements or realities change. Suppose marketing suddenly demands that you release the product one month earlier than scheduled. How do you respond? Do you • Defer certain requirements to a later release? • Shorten the planned system test cyde? • Pay your staff overtime or hire contractors to accelerdte development? • Shift resources from other projects to help out? The project priorities dictate the actions you take when such eventualities arise. 4.3 Operating Environment Describe the environment in which the system will be used and deflne the vital availability, reliability, performance, and integrity requirements. This informationwill significantly influence the definition of the system's architecture, which is the first-and often the most important--design step. A system that must support widely distributed users who require access around the dock needs a significantly different architecture from one that's employed by co-located users only during normal working hours. Nonfunctional requirements such as fault tolerance and the ability to service the system while it is running can consume
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Establishing the Product Vision and Project Scope

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