Requirements prioritization with UserVoice

A day in the life of the business analyst:
We have a set of requirements and are ready to prioritize them. We hope to consult all relevant stakeholders and engage them in a collaborative effort.

Rating scales are often used, for example Mandatory, Important, Desirable etc.. but so often everything ends up mandatory.

UserVoice demonstrates an innovative approach to polling for prioritization. Each user only has a limited number of votes to cast. The UserVoice website speaks of "spending votes". You are forced to spend wisely, so to speak, to focus on what is most important.

Here's an example where i want the BA community to give me topic preferences from an initial list for upcoming OpenTalk meetings; and add their own if they like.

we do agile...

... yeah right.
Here's a quote from James Shores' blog, The Art of Agile, that sums up the reality.

"At the risk of ending on a downer, the vast majority of shops that say they're doing 'Agile' do nothing of the sort. Instead, they use the terminology without actually following the underlying ideas. For example, teams will plan in 'Sprints' but not actually produce shippable software every month. So don't be surprised if nothing really changes except the terminology. Real change of the sort Agile needs requires willpower and commitment on the part of both managers and team members. That's easier to fake than supply."

That is pessimistic!

I haven't had enough work experience here to make any informed comment about the agile scene in NZ. The buzz is loud, and i've been assured that some of the cultural obstacles i have observed in the RSA are less of a problem here. I can't help thinking though that commonalities of behaviour are more likely. James Shore is probably speaking of the US, it resonates strongly with what i have heard in the RSA, are the Kiwis really that different? Consider for example the tall poppy syndrome which quite a few folk tell me remains prevalent here. That's only sand in the agile machinery.

Let's see what experiences and observations the new year has to offer.

More on collaboration

This post from PebbleRoad echoes comments i made in my first post - the technology is the lesser challenge - and also provides a useful model of organizational attributes and how they work for or against the success of intranet initiatives. The comments are also great, especially the observation regarding the semantic tension between the words collaboration and culture. I quote:

"In mixing the terms collaboration and culture, you’ve got something funny going on. Culture is about shared values. Collaboration, as defined by people like Barbara Grey, is about people coming together with different cultures, constructively exploring their differences and seeking a shared solution.
In many ways, collaboration culture is about agreeing to disagree or acknowledging how difference is good—your perspective and my perspective aren’t the same. And that’s what will make us successful"

start again...

... as my friend James put it recently.

This mini post is just a link to a great post that makes plenty of constructive points regarding the collaboration culture and how to foster it. Refreshingly there is no reference to social media, agile or Web 2.0. Hats off, even though they're Aussies.

In fact, i like their site so much it's been added to the blogroll.

the people challenge

During a recent business analysis assignment (elicit, analyse and document user requirements for an internal information sharing service) i was struck yet again by the vast gap between technology offerings and the readiness, willingness, ability of people to take advantage of them.

The tools required to embark on an information sharing and management initiative are out there, freely available and easy to use

• commenting and rating services can be embedded in your content to facilitate feedback (example JS-Kit)
• there are survey and voting services aplenty (SurveyGizmo, UserVoice, your favourite here).
• wikis ditto, take your pick
• set up a blog in 2 minutes
  
• tiddlywiki - our business requirement was originally developed using this, in addition to the content (the business requirement) the format demonstrates full text search, non-linear presentation, commenting and feedback, all of which the user community had very little, if any, experience
  
• pbworks - used as a demo implementation of how the requirement could be realized
• tangler - a discussion forum embedded in pbworks as part of the demonstration

It's a mashup paradise!

These examples are not meant as endorsements or final recommendations for adoption. They make the point that useful tools are easy to find, that the technology is by far the lesser challenge that faces us.

The people that shall use these tools however, whether just as information consumers, or as content developers and administrators, are another matter entirely. And we are all pretty much in agreement on this. Resorting to the hoariest cliches, everyone knows that "it's the people that make or break it" and that "without the people's buy-in" our efforts are doomed to failure.

Beyond that general agreement however we had little of substance to help us address the real challenge:

How do we bring about that crucial shift in attitude towards collaboration, towards sharing information? How do we begin to address the deeply entrenched behaviours that stand in the way?

We are slaves to the many behaviours that define corporate social culture. Example: the reluctance to share knowledge, because knowledge is power and sharing it somehow weakens me. The idea of sharing and collaboration goes against the competitive urges that motivate us in the workplace. On the other hand, people are often reluctant to participate because they fear it will expose their ignorance, their vulnerabilities.
Security policies in many corporate environments also keep their workers in the dark, isolated from relevant communities. Example Websense. It's as though people are not allowed to have telephones on their desk lest they use them to make private calls.

What to do?

Although these observations come from my experience working in two large corporates, i suspect they apply quite broadly across the corporate workplace. I am putting this topic up here in the hope of starting a useful debate that addresses this "people challenge"