Chapter 2. Aligning Decision Making and Synchronizing Distributed Development Horizontally in the Organization

In the previous chapter, we looked at the combined use of QFD and use cases to link business drivers to user requirements, and user requirements to system requirements and design decisions: the vertical dimension of requirements management. In this chapter, we turn to the second dimension of requirements management: using QFD and use cases to align decisions and synchronize use case-driven development horizontally across multiple component, product, or business groups in a company (i.e., use case-driven distributed development).

Two examples will be used in this chapter, both centered on a hypothetical company, Oil & Gas Exploration Systems. The examples first utilize QFD to analyze Oil & Gas Exploration Systems' needs for a company-wide developer's kit for shared earth modeling (we'll get to this in the section titled, "The Problem: Selecting a Shared Earth Modeling Development Kit") and then to synchronize use case-driven development across the company as their product line is migrated over to the new developer's kit. While Oil & Gas Exploration Systems is a hypothetical company, the examples are based on actual experiences and illustrate real product development issues faced by software development companies in the industry.