Product Requirements: Riding out Seismic shifts and Tremors

Perhaps the software project manager's biggest challenge is the constant stream of changes to the system under construction. Frequently, managers try to control this by mandating compete requirements or code freezes. this approach is unlikely to be successful and only leads to client dissatisfaction. Time the system is delivered, it is out of date. We can think of changes to the system in much the same way we think of seismic shifts. There are sharing points in the system, where one portion of the system changes more frequently than another portion, creating tension. To write out these seismic shifts, we need to think where those sharing points are and how to encapsulate or otherwise mitigate the effective changes in both requirements and system design. This talk will explore techniques for managing rapidly changing requirements and minimizing the impact to the overall evolution of the system.