Dennis DavisConsultant| Davis ConsultingAntioch, Ca, United States
OK, first let me apologize up front if this topic has been beaten to death in other discussions but I haven't come across the exact solution to my problem. In a nutshell, I'm helping to institute a new SDLC model for company complete w/ templates, processes, etc. I'm jumping into the middle of the project and evaluating the usefulness of some of the templates and how to modify them to be more useful. In particular, the templates for the company's BA include: 1) business requirements and 2) functional spec.(one version for use cases and one version w/out use cases). Now, my question is twofold:
1. Shouldn't the use cases in the truest sense, be part of the bus. reqs template since its a method of gathering functional reqs?
2. If I do re-buld the bus req template to incorporate use cases, is there a real need for a functional spec?
I hope my questions are clear enough to elicit some good responses. I've worked on projects that have used everything from use cases to SRSs to functional and/or tech requirements docs but this is the first time that I have had to truly consider what is the purpose for some of these docs. Thanx for the responses. Saving Changes...
Whoa boy. Hold your horses there pardner, lets not get impatient at this juncture.
Now, lets just review where we are: I’ve already drawn your attention to the root of the issue; I’ve provided a reading list with a set of literature which make the key points required to understand the Project Management problem, (http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/tg/lis...55587-3654251); I’ve pointed to a useful critique which spells out (in non academic language) one of the key underlying problems (Swaber) and then I’ve made over a dozen (large) posts, further spelling it out. Now you want me to reduce all that to a couple of paragraphs which answer your particular dilemmas? And this is despite the fact that I have strenuously made the point that a cornerstone of my position is that there is no “universal advice” (a fact which is obviously lost on you or you wouldn’t be framing your question in the way that you are). That’s about right isn’t it? So what work are YOU going to do? Are you going to take any responsibility for understanding this? Do you want me to do every thing for you? Maybe you want me to even come and do your projects too. Hell I could even cut up and chew your food for you – that would make life easy wouldn’t it? So, maybe I should just ask you to wait for my forthcoming book: “Project Management in NO EASY STEPS” (only joshing)………………………..
Now despite what I’ve said above I’m going to go a bit further in spelling it out. In fact, I’ve ALREADY started (yet again) to lay out my position for you (both “simply” and “without anecdotes”)… YOU DIDN’T SEEM TO NOTICE. The 1st step was asking you three questions which you have completely ignored with the line “I don't understand your response”.
Here they are again. Will you humour me and give me a, preferably honest, answer?:
Before we go on are you willing 1. To set aside your prejudices? 2. To bring a "beginners mind"? 3. Most importantly are you willing to give up on the notion of a universal process to be followed and to agree that competent action is unique to the context and the individuals participating, and which is emergent and not reducible to recipe (ie method)?
By the way if you are American, I probably need to mentioned that there is more than a touch of IRONY in all of the foregoing (you’ll undoubtedly need this link: http://www.answers.com/irony&r=67), not to mention in what is still to come (if we ever get there). Hope you can get into a British sense of humour and intellectual-playfulness.
Meanwhile ponder this…….( Read and learn Grasshopper)
“Well established hierarchies are not easily uprooted;
Closely held beliefs are not easily released;
So ritual enthralls generation after generation.”
Tao Te Ching.
And this………
The Tao Te Ching warns us: “True wisdom is different from much learning, much learning means little wisdom.” We can indeed become too preoccupied with the minute details of our knowledge to the extent that we lose sight of their meaning and purpose. We hear educators today who complain that “we seem to be learning more and more about less and less” precisely because of our failure to explore the broader contexts of our knowledge.
Eric, perhaps I was unclear. My fault. When I said, I didn't understand your response, I meant that I didn't understand or see an answer from you to my very simple questions of 1) what would be your approach and 2) how are things done in your organization. Rather than a recommended reading list of others or more anecdotes (all of which I find informative and amusing), I was asking you a simple question. By the way, I did read and notice what you wrote... (your words) "The 1st step was asking you three questions which you have completely ignored with the line “I don't understand your response”. Here they are again. Will you humour me and give me a, preferably honest, answer?: Before we go on are you willing 1. To set aside your prejudices? 2. To bring a "beginners mind"? 3. Most importantly are you willing to give up on the notion of a universal process to be followed and to agree that competent action is unique to the context and the individuals participating, and which is emergent and not reducible to recipe (ie method)?".... I did not fail to read or ignore that advice. In fact, I find it refereshing and an excellent idea, but clearly not an answer to the question at hand. Hence, I did not understand your response as an answer to my question. You know Eric, as I read through your posts and replies to others, you consistently evade answering any questions and continually demonstrate an inability to defend your position. I would bet that many people like myself agree with much of your observations about PMI and "blindly" following processes without an individual understanding and core competency. And that can be said and applied outside the realm of project management too. You say that you are being "intellectually playful", but to me, and perhaps many others, I find that you make it hard to take you seriously. It is ever so easy to find fault, be cute, give endless anecdotes, and cite theories and opinions. It is quite a bit more difficult to clearly posit usable and useful constructive criticism and well thought out recommendations for organizational continuous improvement. Per one of your posts down below, you can continue to call your management, and me too if you like, names like "bureaucratic moron". I am open to and welcome any advice, suggestions, and constructive criticism to improve results. I suspect your management (those morons) are too. But you, my friend, need to learn that there is a difference observing fault and providing constructive criticism. Eric, in my last post to you I asked you to put yourself in my shoes and asked you the following... "Can you simply tell me (without anecdotes) your approach to how you think or would like a project organization to be managed and/or how your organization does it? Or, if you were named PMO manager tomorrow, what would you do?".... Eric, I am no longer interested in what you have to say. It would not surprise me if my counterpart in your company and the other executives and management are no longer interested in what you have to say either. I wish you well, but will not be reading your posts or your blog. I don't mean to offend you and ask other readers to let me know if I have missed the point or am out of line. Saving Changes...
Oops. Excuse me Anony-mouse, but you appear to have thrown your toys out of your pram. You know, I haven’t seen a display like that since one of my 8 year old son’s friends took his ball back and went home after missing a goal shot! But enough of having a go at such an easy target, shouldn’t kick a mouse when he is down and out (or too frightened to use his own name or have a conversation for that matter). On to business…….Re: “you consistently evade answering” errr… excuse me but YOU are leaving while I am in the process of answering your question. And I am trying to do it not just with soundbites and opinions but with god communication, supported with academic references to literature and resources which support my position. This is a sign of verifiable, well thought out and decent writing not a way of avoiding saying anything worthwhile as you seem to suggest. You, MY FRIEND, have got it upside down. Compare my writing to most of what is written on these boards, most of which is just bald opinion, hype, advocacy of own practice, lacking in critical thinking and completely unsupported by quality academic references or in any literature whatsoever. Worst of all most of it seems to be complacently accepted even when anybody involved or observing the industry can see that PM does not do what it says on the tin and often leads to (or causes) major failures. Eg It wasn’t long ago that Standish reported that "only 9% of projects for large companies come in on-time and on-budget".
For communication to happen it needs two sides to both speak AND listen. I have put a lot of effort into writing posts to try to enter into a genuine dialogue with you. The reason I am trying to put over these points in a dialogue is that they are a bit too complex to be reduced to simple universal sound bites or headlines (i.e. “simple” answers to simple questions), so could you please tell me: which part of “there is no universal advice” or “competent action is unique to the context and the individuals participating, and which is emergent and not reducible to recipe” is it that you CANNOT UNDERSTAND. (As Einstein said – all things should be simplified as far as possible BUT NO FURTHER!)
By the way I don’t need to learn anything about criticism– the posts and the website are completely tongue in cheek and are meant to be ironic and provocative, if you read the blog you will see it is even ironically self-effacing. Why is this approach taken? Because it is one of the few ways to deflate and burst pompous bubbles and self supporting and BLINDING ideologies such as PM. Yes, PM causes those involved to marginalise other conceptions of managing. Getting beyond this problem and ensuring that those being presented with new material do not just take on a superficial interpretation is WHY it is adversarial and what all the bollocks about Zen and beginners mind is about.
Re: your idea that “other readers …let me know if I have missed the point or am out of line”. I hope they do, but lets just critique your idea. You believe it is up to the “mob” to decide (“the tyranny of the majority”), is that it? In case you didn’t attend your history classes in school it is that type of idiotic thinking that got books burned in Berlin, Jews gassed in Auschwitz, witches burned in Salem and how the church managed to suppress the advances of science and brainwash the gullible for centuries (think of Galileo for example.) Another flat-earther are you? How utterly moronic!
“my counterpart in your company and the other executives and management are no longer interested in what you have to say either” Do you know them? Do you know me? No, you don’t and you couldn’t possibly have any idea what their views are or what my relationship is with them, but yet you see fit to advance ludicrous, unsupported opinions which clearly have no basis in fact (because you don’t have any facts to go on). You are a true Project Management commentator: i.e. you make bland unsupported opinions, based on no facts, which are clearly wrong in and of themselves, and you probably even believe them (!!!Taken in by your own BS!!!). Can you see why your blind & ignorant gropings are totally ridiculous? No wonder this “profession” is in such a mess with people such as yourself working in and commenting on it.
I should have guessed by the fact that you sign as anony-mouse and are too frightened to use your own name that you would wimp out from this discussion. Squeak to you another time, cheese-ball. ;-)
Hi Ruth, Thanks for your insightful comments - must have taken you a while to come up with that! Hahaaaaaaaaaaaaa. You managed to put together a whole sentence – well done, must have been a struggle for you. Try advancing some reasoning next time. By the way, have you ever heard of the classic "when did you last beat your lesbian lover?” question??? No? I thought you might have been asked that one? But no it doesn’t entirely surprise me. Listen up now, since my generosity knows no bounds I'm going to educate you even further (because boy - you need it). The "when did you last beat your wife" question is a deceptive, leading question which attempts to mislead/misdirect. If the question is answered directly in good faith, no matter how the question is answered, the framer of the question has already steered the debate to his advantage. That is what has happened here (even though Anony-mouse is probably only partly aware that he has framed the question inappropriately). In this case when I call anony-mouse's bluff and reframe the question, guess what happens? He senses the game is up and throws his toys out of the pram and runs away. I won’t be drawn into answering the question on the mouse’s terms, but even you couldn't deny (at least privately to yourself) that I am answering the question. Have a nice life. Eric http://pmsucks.blogspot.com/ Saving Changes...
Anonymous, you did not miss the point and you are not the one that is out of line. But you were duped. The real Eric Blair, better known as George Orwell (1903-1950), is the famous political satirist and author of "Animal Farm". The guy you have been exchanging posts with is just a poser, a nobody. Eric Blair is NOT his real name. And the picture on the profile page of his blog is NOT his real picture. It is George Orwell's. The guy with whom you have been posting has no project management or PMO credentials, accomplishments, or note worthiness of any kind. He plays at satire, but without tested experience, maturity, and thought leadership in project management, he is left with name calling and with evading any kind of direct and sincere dialog. He ridicules others for posting anonymously, yet he lies about even his own name. He is not interested in or capable of advancing ideas, only rhetoric - that is speech that sounds impressive, but in actuality is NOT sincere and NOT useful. Critical thinker and clever satirist, he is not. Phoney and a fake, well, you can be the judge of that. Saving Changes...
Since you seem to be cross posting see my reply in "Knocking the PMI".
But see if you can answer this question: you state that "The guy with whom you have been posting has no project management or PMO credentials, accomplishments", given that you know nothing about me how do you profess to know this? Or is this just another example of the idiocy of PMI-ers who think they can make unsupported claims without any basis? I think it must be a disease you all have (er come to think of it I know the name of that disease - stupidity).
David JonesAtherstone, Warwickshire, United Kingdom
Well, this does make for an interesting read! Thanks to all posters!! :)
For what its worth, my two pennies:
Process and tools are quite often used as something to hide behind, used incorrectly following a process blindly only leads to disaster (as you all seem to agree on), however having A PROCESS is something that CANNOT be avoided in a large organisation. For example - right now I am working on a set of projects, with more than 10 project teams all working on various components and applications that will come together in a SOA (http://searchwebservices.techtarget.com/sD...29153,00.html).
Now, I often disagree with our PMO and Process engineers on what to do and how to do it, but the bottom line is - without this PMO and the process we are following (while individual projects may succeed) the overall picture will be an un-maintainable mess. This will increase mid to long term ownership costs etc etc.
Eric - I like your analogies ("be the water my friend" - may mean something to some of you) and agree with you under the following circumstances:
- All PMs and teams are highly educated motivated and intelligent people.
- All PMs and teams understand and are committed to the long term goals of the enterprise
My problem is, that is the ideal world and not the one we live in. Saving Changes...
Eric, finally a PM with a clue! Processes are just that, I believe whole heartedly in what you are saying. Not every process will work in every situation or need. Running a project is like Mayoring a town, some hate the project, some hate the Mayor but in the end when all goes well they respect you. Kudos to sticking to your guns. At least working for someone like you all on the team would know what to do, where they stand and just what exactly is going to be done.
Kudos,
Kim Christopher Saving Changes...
I can sympathize with Anonymous. What he has failed to realize in his search for life's templates is that his real question is: What do you do with the VP, whom after having watched the cook cut up the ox asks, "Well, when the heck is dinner going to be ready?" Alas, there is no cure for that ailment, except to keep your boots and powder dry and try to work for a prince. Eric is frustrated because he can't locate one and has difficulty hiding his disdain. Saving Changes...
