Best Practices for Identifying Requirements Errors and Improving Software Project Success 
Dr. Joe Marasco
Chief Executive Officer
Ravenflow

Introduction:

Requirements errors are the #1 cause of software project failures, costing U.S. businesses over $30 billion annually . This session explores how project managers, business analysts and other key stakeholders can improve the requirements validation process, and identify and fix potential problems before they have the chance to negatively impact project budgets or time-to-market.

Learning Objectives:

Attendees will learn:

• the weak links in the software requirements development cycle of elicitation, specification/analysis, and validation
• new, collaborative approaches project stakeholders can use to define and validate more precise and accurate requirements
• proven tactics for identifying and fixing requirements errors before coding begins

Outline:

Research shows that more than two thirds of all software projects initiated fail to meet goals and that requirements errors are the number one cause, costing U.S. businesses over $30 billion annually . In this session, Joe Marasco , Ph.D and author of The Software Development Edge: Essays on Managing Successful Projects , will discuss how project managers, business analysts and other key project stakeholders can collaborate more effectively, improve the requirements development process, and most important, identify and fix specification problems before they have the chance to negatively impact project budgets or time-to-market. Attendees will learn:

• the weak links in the requirements development cycle of elicitation, analysis, validation and specification
• how to calculate the true cost of requirements errors
• new, collaborative approaches for defining more precise and accurate requirements
• the relationship between common development models and requirements validation best practices
• proven tactics for identifying and fixing requirements errors, including the role of visualization in helping project stakeholders “see what was said”
• the importance of iterative validation, i.e., how project teams can work to ensure better software quality in the face of continual change

Biography:

A 35-year industry veteran, Dr. Joe Marasco has been involved in nearly every aspect of creating and marketing software, from product development and sales, to marketing and operations. His book, The Software Development Edge: Essays on Managing Successful Projects , published in 2005 by Addison-Wesley, delivers “in the trenches” expertise on managing software projects. Throughout his career, Dr. Marasco has been cognizant of the importance of improving requirements quality early in the development process, and his current leadership role at Ravenflow is focused on revolutionizing the way that software requirements and business processes are developed and validated. Dr. Marasco has shared his insight and expertise at numerous industry events, including the Better Software Conference , Dr. Dobb's SD West , the IBM Rational Software Development Conference, the 2007 IEEE Systems Conference and the STAR EAST Software Testing & Analysis Review Conference. He is also scheduled to speak at the upcoming Dr. Dobb's SD Best Practices in September.