Rating: 
Summary: This book is terrific!
Review: This is not only the best book on requirements gathering that I've found, it is one of the best books on *any* aspect of software development that I've ever read. It is clear, focussed, well-written, full of extremely powerful concepts, and illustrated with useful examples and formal models of all aspects of the requirements gathering process and requirements-related information. As a result, I not only gained tremendous insight into how to improve the requirements gathering process at our company, I also learned by clear example how to make best use of each of the modeling formalisms the authors recommend. I've never written an on-line review before, but this book was so superior that I felt I had to take the time and share my enthusiasm. I hope you find it as valuable in your projects as we are finding at our company.
Rating:
Summary: Deserves All 5 Stars
Review: This is one of the best books on the subject of computer software development that I have ever read. The style is engaging and very creative; a pleasure to read. They explain something that I have tried to do many times myself but I was never quite able to hit the nail on the head until I encountered their ideas. I like this book because it has an abundance of ideas, most of them good. You can cut out what you don't want if their process is too elaborate for you, on a smaller project say. On larger projects it could well be a life saver. Read this book and you could well become the respected 'requirements genius' of your organisation, bringing direction where there was chaos.
Every software project I have ever worked on has had fundamentally the same problem; poor requirements. After reading this book my requirements documents were rated 9 or 10 out of 10 by a software development team. We had a traceable, understandable and very thorough process which enabled us to write the correct software straight off. Of course only an oracle can predict how requirements will change as your organisations business needs change so your requirements can still become wrong over time. The subject of changing requirements has been the focus of eXtreme Programming and other Agile methods; perhaps the authors might consider adding a chapter on how to integrate their process and template with Agile?
The chapter on 'Event Driven Use Cases' explains how to arrive at more innovative products by considering the product boundary. I really enjoyed this. Its very creative. Don't believe that having a fixed requirements process means that you will have a dull product. Quite the opposite, the authors show how the process can really support your own creativity and invention.
Incidentally, one of the other reviews states that this book is flawed because it doesn't take into account the architecure of the implementation. Thats the whole point. A good specification seperates the what from the how. The how part is technical design and I really hope that these two authors go on to write a book on that subject too. In short, brilliant, buy it right away!
Rating:
Summary: This Book is Required Reading
Review: This is the best book on requirements gathering and analysis yet written. The authors are practiced at what they preach and inspire an attitude of inquiry that is the soul of the requirements engineering art. Read this book.
Rating:
Summary: This Book is Required Reading
Review: This is the best book on requirements gathering and analysis yet written. The authors are practiced at what they preach and inspire an attitude of inquiry that is the soul of the requirements engineering art. Read this book.
Rating:
Summary: I've used for in several projects now.
Review: This is the best book on requirements gathering I have ever read. When I finished it, I asked for and received the authors' permission to use the Volere template for a couple of test cases in my job (I specialize in requirements gathering) and have used it for one very large and another very famous client, with excellent results. While it doesn't especially lend itself to Internet projects, it significantly cuts down the time it takes me to gather requirements, and adds a level of consistency to the requirements documents my colleagues and I produce. Definitely worth the money.
Rating:
Summary: This book is a keeper!
Review: Wary of "star inflation?" Me too, yet this book gets five stars from me. A very readable book, Mastering... gave me concrete guidelines for a topic that seems too nebulus at times. I read this book at the same time I was doing requirements gathering for a relatively simple project. This book caused me to make *specific* changes to our requirments document template and ask our customers questions I wouldn't have otherwise. I think this book has just right amount of depth and detail to be read "in isolation" (of other books or prior experience) and help one do a competent job of requirements gathering. However, you the reader must do your part. You'll have to cogitate just a little! Requirements gathering is thoughful process, not a science with rigid algorithms. There is no pretentious scientification in this book. And yes, "use case" is not given much more than a simple definition (although the concept is fundamental to the authors' process); but how many books do I need to read on Use Case to understand that a customer's business process can be divided into logical or physical modules, each of which in turn can be divided... This book will give the novice what (s)he needs to actually do requirements gathering; and it definitely gave me points to ponder when doing my project. You won't be an expert after reading this book any more than you'll be a pro golfer after reading a book by Tiger Woods. Practice makes perfect! Reading this book is an excellent way to learn what to practice.
Rating:
Summary: This book is a keeper!
Review: Wary of "star inflation?" Me too, yet this book gets five stars from me. A very readable book, <i>Mastering...</i> gave me concrete guidelines for a topic that seems too nebulus at times. I read this book at the same time I was doing requirements gathering for a relatively simple project. This book caused me to make *specific* changes to our requirments document template and ask our customers questions I wouldn't have otherwise. I think this book has just right amount of depth and detail to be read "in isolation" (of other books or prior experience) and help one do a competent job of requirements gathering. However, you the reader must do your part. You'll have to cogitate just a little! Requirements gathering is thoughful process, not a science with rigid algorithms. There is no pretentious scientification in this book. And yes, "use case" is not given much more than a simple definition (although the concept is fundamental to the authors' process); but how many books do I need to read on <i>Use Case</i> to understand that a customer's business process can be divided into logical or physical modules, each of which in turn can be divided... This book will give the novice what (s)he needs to actually do requirements gathering; and it definitely gave me points to ponder when doing my project. You won't be an expert after reading this book any more than you'll be a pro golfer after reading a book by Tiger Woods. Practice makes perfect! Reading this book is an <i>excellent</i> way to learn <i>what</i> to practice.
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