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-makingDetermine whether to invest in a projectDeliver more appropriate products with a quick cycle timeMeasure and estimate the requirements effortDefine the most effective requirements process for a projectManage stakeholder involvement and expectationsSet requirements prioritiesManage requirements across multiple domains and technologiesUse 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.

This book provides a stakeholder-centered analysis of projects and explains which identification, analysis, communication, and engagement models are relevant to different types of projects. If stakeholders matter, then they must make a difference in the way we plan structure and execute projects. Do they matter on your projects? This book provides a stakeholder-centered analysis of projects and explains which identification, analysis, communication, and engagement models are relevant to different types of projects: from an office move to IT enterprise change to transformational business change and complex social change. Using case studies from around the world, it illustrates what goes wrong when stakeholders are not engaged successfully and what lessons we can learn from these examples. In this second edition, we also look at the impact of Agile practices on the stakeholder management process. What changes in approach can we anticipate, and what practices must continue regardless of the product development life cycle adopted? Key models introduced include: Role-based and agenda-based stakeholders; The stakeholder-neutral to stakeholder-led project continuum; The extended stakeholder management process; Purposeful communication—the six whys model for communication; The principles of stakeholder engagement; Stakeholder engagement in an agile world.

“If the purpose is to create one of the best books on requirements yet written, the authors have succeeded.” —Capers Jones Software can solve almost any problem. The trick is knowing what the problem is. With about half of all software errors originating in the requirements activity, it is clear that a better understanding of the problem is needed. Getting the requirements right is crucial if we are to build systems that best meet our needs. We know, beyond doubt, that the right requirements produce an end result that is as innovative and beneficial as it can be, and that system development is both effective and efficient. Mastering the Requirements Process: Getting Requirements Right, Third Edition, sets out an industry-proven process for gathering and verifying requirements, regardless of whether you work in a traditional or agile development environment. In this sweeping update of the bestselling guide, the authors show how to discover precisely what the customer wants and needs, in the most efficient manner possible. Features include The Volere requirements process for discovering requirements, for use with both traditional and iterative environments A specification template that can be used as the basis for your own requirements specifications Formality guides that help you funnel your efforts into only the requirements work needed for your particular development environment and project How to make requirements testable using fit criteria Checklists to help identify stakeholders, users, non-functional requirements, and more Methods for reusing requirements and requirements patterns New features include Strategy guides for different environments, including outsourcing Strategies for gathering and implementing requirements for iterative releases “Thinking above the line” to find the real problem How to move from requirements to finding the right solution The Brown Cow model for clearer viewpoints of the system Using story cards as requirements Using the Volere Knowledge Model to help record and communicate requirements Fundamental truths about requirements and system development

Organizations continue to experience project issues associated with poor performance on requirements-related activities. This guide will give you the tools you need to excel in requirements development and management — components of the larger field of business analysis and a critical competence for project, program and portfolio management. Requirements Management: A Practice Guide is a bridge between A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK&® Guide), which speaks to requirements development and management from a high-level perspective, and Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, which describes requirements development and management at a detailed and practical level. This practice guide is the middle ground, offering project managers, program managers, teams members and stakeholders the opportunity to learn more about the requirements process

Most project managers would agree that every project is unique. But not all project managers would agree that the best way to manage a unique project is unique. Many still cling to the old practice of having a methodology that is applied to all projects. "One size fits all" is still in common use, and this approach has proven to lead to project failure. Flexibility, situational intelligence, and creativity are essential to deliver project success. The need to recognize and master ever-changing requirements and environmental conditions is a tough challenge for professional project managers. The same practices that led to success yesterday may cause failure today. Selecting favorable responses to a given situation is often the most critical factor of the dynamics of success and failure. This book is designed to help project professionals assess a situation, predict the appropriate approach, methodology and achieving styles, and then apply them in a situational fashion. To guide project managers in selecting the appropriate responses, Situational Project Management (SitPM) shows how to assess a given project, determine its unique characteristics, and select the appropriate methods to complete the project. With this book, projects managers can use SitPM to develop profiles of their projects on the basis of the projects’ physical characteristics, the project teams’ behavioral characteristics, the enterprise environment, and the market environments receiving project deliverables. These profiles help project managers to determine the appropriate project life cycle approach and leadership style. The book also explores various ways to engage stakeholders on the basis of a project’s SitPM profile. The book’s author, Oliver F. Lehmann, has developed a set of templates to apply SitPM in practice. It can be downloaded from www.oliverlehmann.com/SitPM/Templates.zip.

Project Requirements: A Guide to Best Practices gives project managers tools they can assimilate and apply easily to improve project success rates, reduce development costs, reduce rework, and accelerate time to market. Based on experience and best practices, this valuable reference will help you: • Clarify real requirements before you initiate project work • Improve management of project requirements • Save time and effort • Manage to your schedule • Improve the quality of deliverables • Increase customer satisfaction and drive repeat business Project Requirements: A Guide to Best Practices provides project managers with a direct, practical strategy to overcome requirements challenges and manage requirements successfully.

This Handbook was the first APM Body of Knowledge Approved title for the Association for Project Management. Over the course of five editions, Gower Handbook of Project Management has become the definitive desk reference for project management practitioners. The Handbook gives an introduction to, and overview of, the essential knowledge required for managing projects. The team of expert contributors, selected to introduce the reader to the knowledge and skills required to manage projects, includes many of the most experienced and highly regarded international writers and practitioners. The Fifth Edition has been substantially restructured. All but two of the authors are new, reflecting the fast-changing and emerging perspectives on projects and their management. The four sections in the book describe: ¢ Projects, their context, value and how they are connected to organizational strategy; ¢ Performance: describing how to manage the delivery of the project, covering scope, quality, cost, time, resources, risk and sustainability ¢ Process: from start up to close down ¢ Portfolio: the project and its relationship to the organization The discrete nature of each chapter makes this Handbook a wonderful source of advice and background theory that is easy to consult. Gower Handbook of Project Management is an encyclopaedia for the discipline and profession of project management; a bible for project clients, contractors and students.

"If you're looking for solid, easy-to-follow advice on estimation, requirements gathering, managing change, and more, you can stop now: this is the book for you."--Scott Berkun, Author of The Art of Project Management What makes software projects succeed? It takes more than a good idea and a team of talented programmers. A project manager needs to know how to guide the team through the entire software project. There are common pitfalls that plague all software projects and rookie mistakes that are made repeatedly--sometimes by the same people! Avoiding these pitfalls is not hard, but it is not necessarily intuitive. Luckily, there are tried and true techniques that can help any project manager. In Applied Software Project Management, Andrew Stellman and Jennifer Greene provide you with tools, techniques, and practices that you can use on your own projects right away. This book supplies you with the information you need to diagnose your team's situation and presents practical advice to help you achieve your goal of building better software. Topics include: Planning a software project Helping a team estimate its workload Building a schedule Gathering software requirements and creating use cases Improving programming with refactoring, unit testing, and version control Managing an outsourced project Testing software Jennifer Greene and Andrew Stellman have been building software together since 1998. Andrew comes from a programming background and has managed teams of requirements analysts, designers, and developers. Jennifer has a testing background and has managed teams of architects, developers, and testers. She has led multiple large-scale outsourced projects. Between the two of them, they have managed every aspect of software development. They have worked in a wide range of industries, including finance, telecommunications, media, nonprofit, entertainment, natural-language processing, science, and academia. For more information about them and this book, visit stellman-greene.com

This highly accessible book gives advice to project managers who need to get up to speed quickly. It includes hints and tips on managing budget, time, scope and people. This updated edition reflects changes to working practices such as the use of social media and collaboration tools. SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2014 CMI MANAGEMENT BOOK OF THE YEAR.

The popular guide to the project management body of knowledge, now fully updated Now in its seventh edition, this comprehensive guide to project management has long been considered the standard for both professionals and academics. With more than 32,000 copies sold in the last three editions, it has now been fully updated to cover the new PMBOK® Guide. Well-known expert Robert Wysocki has added more than 100 pages of new content based on instructor feedback, enhancing the coverage of best-of-breed methods and tools for ensuring project management success. With enriched case studies, accompanying exercises and solutions on the companion website, and PowerPoint slides for all figures and tables, the book is ideal for instructors and students as well as active project managers. Serves as a comprehensive guide to project management for both educators and project management professionals Completely updated to cover the new PMBOK® Guide Examines traditional, agile, and extreme project management techniques; the Enterprise Project Management Model; and Kanban and Scrumban methodologies Includes a companion website with exercises and solutions and well as PowerPoint slides for all the figures and tables used Written by well-known project management expert Robert Wysocki Effective Project Management, Seventh Edition remains the comprehensive resource for project management practitioners, instructors, and students. (PMBOK is a registered mark of the Project Management Institute, Inc.)