So much time spend on meetings regarding requirements

Companies spend hundreds of hours working on scope and requirements for necessary IT systems. Check if this happens also in your company.

Symptoms

• the same problem is discussed again and again which involves many people

• the level of complexity of some requirements makes discussions on them long and tedious

• lack of systematic synthesis of the results of all requirements discussions in one place

Negative results

• requirements are still heavily discussed even far into project execution

• lack of clear specification causes many software bugs and makes bug fixing harder

• the IT team needs continuous support from Subject Matter Experts

Causes

• the organisation has high expectations for this particular project so it has to start ASAP

• there is no single individual fully responsible for writing down requirements

• verbal communication prevails in the organisational culture

This is my advice

Steps to perform

• introduce the principle that the purpose of each meeting is to improve the quality of existing documentation

• during the meetings present requirements text or diagrams

• record all meetings about requirements and analyse recordings to improve documentation - how to ensure best use of time

Positive results

• much less total time spent on meetings

• there is up to date system documentation

• IT system works fine and is adjusted to business needs

Challenges

• the need to listen to many meeting recordings in order to complete the documentation

• it is harder to organize meetings: agenda planning, documents presentation

• the way of working is changing

The benefits of not changing anything

• frequent meetings help keep good relations

• no need to hire requirements engineering consultants to implement the new process

• there is frequent communication between software developers and Subject Matter Experts