Fighting the tyranny of the Functional Spec
Just when you think you have a problem licked...
We've effectively transitioned 2½ teams to Scrum (the ½ team being Test), casting out the Functional Spec in favor of the Product Backlog, it rears it's head again.
The other day I sat down with our product owner for a chat since she was in town (our product owner works on the other side of the country - don't get me started) and talked about where the product was going, etc. Somewhere along the line she uttered those words that are the bane of any development team, most functional companies, and many dis-functional companies: "We're going to be improving our process."
Oh crap. I thought I was done fighting this battle. Now that we're somewhat functional as a software dev group, someone (undoubtedly one of the PMs who never attends any of our meetings and never comes by to find out how the product development is going) is again pushing for more documentation and more structure. What a god damned waste of time. If you must have a functional spec, make it the last thing you do, after the product is written to the features from the backlog and will match the product, not the first thing you do so that the entire development team is sitting around with their thumbs up their asses while you debate if the OK button should be in the upper left or lower right corner of the screen.
At Agile 2006 I sat in on a talk by Michele Slinger from Rally Software. She had a great quote that went something like (if I may paraphrase)
We've effectively transitioned 2½ teams to Scrum (the ½ team being Test), casting out the Functional Spec in favor of the Product Backlog, it rears it's head again.
The other day I sat down with our product owner for a chat since she was in town (our product owner works on the other side of the country - don't get me started) and talked about where the product was going, etc. Somewhere along the line she uttered those words that are the bane of any development team, most functional companies, and many dis-functional companies: "We're going to be improving our process."
Oh crap. I thought I was done fighting this battle. Now that we're somewhat functional as a software dev group, someone (undoubtedly one of the PMs who never attends any of our meetings and never comes by to find out how the product development is going) is again pushing for more documentation and more structure. What a god damned waste of time. If you must have a functional spec, make it the last thing you do, after the product is written to the features from the backlog and will match the product, not the first thing you do so that the entire development team is sitting around with their thumbs up their asses while you debate if the OK button should be in the upper left or lower right corner of the screen.
At Agile 2006 I sat in on a talk by Michele Slinger from Rally Software. She had a great quote that went something like (if I may paraphrase)
"She then went on to detail how things improved naturally and dramatically when they started doing agile (Crystal Clear, I believe). But the takeaway is that the SDLC methodology we have been taught for the last 30 years does not work for software and has never worked.
I was a project manager for years, PMI certified, the whole thing. For years I tried to follow the waterfall process, write functional specifications and keep them up to date, follow the cycles, and it never worked. All I could think is What am I doing wrong?
"
posted by nitpickable at
8:49 AM
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