Team Skill 2: Understanding User and Stakeholder Needs

   

Team Skill 2: Understanding User and Stakeholder Needs

Summary of User Needs as Collected from Interviews

A number of homeowners, two distributors , and one electrical contractor were interviewed.

From the homeowner 's perspective:

  • Flexible and modifiable lighting control for entire house

  • "Futureproof" ("As technology changes, I'd like compatibility with new technologies that might emerge.")

  • Attractive, unobtrusive , ergonomic

  • Fully independent and programmable or (reconfigurable) switches for each room in the house

  • Additional security and peace of mind

  • Intuitive operation ("I'd like to be able to explain it to my 'technophobic' mother.")

  • A reasonable system cost, with low switch costs

  • Easy and inexpensive to fix

  • Flexible switch configurations (from one to seven " buttons " per switch)

  • Out of sight, out of mind

  • 100 percent reliability

  • Vacation security settings

  • Ability to create scenes, such as special housewide lighting settings for a party

  • No increase in electrical or fire hazards in the home

  • Ability, after a power failure, to restore the lights the way they were

  • Programmable by the homeowner, using an existing PC

  • Dimmers wherever the homeowner wants them

  • Programmable by the homeowner, without using a PC

  • Programmable by somebody else, so the homeowner doesn't have to do it

  • Ability to turn on some lights manually if the system fails

  • Interfaces to the home security system

  • Interfaces to other home automation (HVAC, audio/video, and so on)

From the distributor's perspective:

  • A competitive product offering

  • Some strong product differentiation

  • An easy way to train salespeople

  • Ability to demonstrate the system in the shop

  • High gross margins

The Requirements Workshop

While the interviewing process was under way, the development team met with marketing and decided to hold a requirements workshop for the HOLIS project. They invited the attendees listed in Table A-7.

graphics/man_icon.gif
Table A-7. Attendees of the HOLIS Requirements Workshop

Name

Role

Title

Comments

Rick

Facilitator

Director of marketing

 

Alyssa

Participant

HOLIS product manager

Project champion

Marcy

Participant

Software development manager

Development responsibility for HOLIS

Lucy

Participant

 

Prospective homeowner

Elmer

Participant

 

Prospective homeowner

E.C.

Participant

CEO, Automation Equip

Lumenations' largest distributor

Raquel

Participant

GM, EuroControls

Lumenations' European distributor

Betty

Participant

President, Krystel Electric

Local electrical contractor

Rusty

Participant

President, Rosewind Construction

Custom homebuilder

Emily

Observer

VP and GM, Lumenations

 

Various members

Observer

Development team

All team members who were available

The Workshop

Prior to the workshop, the team put together a warm-up package consisting of:

  • A few recent magazines articles highlighting the trends in home automation

  • Copies of selective interviews that had been conducted

  • A summarized list of the needs that had been identified to date

Rick brushed up on his facilitation skills, and Alyssa handled the logistics for the workshop.

The Session

The session was held at a hotel near the airport and began promptly at 8 A.M. Rick introduced the agenda for the day and the rules for the workshop, including the workshop tickets. Figure A-6 provides a perspective on the workshop.

Figure A-6. HOLIS requirements workshop structure

graphics/afig06.gif

In general, the workshop went very well, and all participants were able to have their input heard . Rick did a fine job of facilitating, but one awkward period occurred when Rick got into an argument with Alyssa about priorities for a couple of features. (The team members decided that for any future workshop, they would bring in an outside facilitator.) Rick led a brainstorming session on potential features for HOLIS, and the team used cumulative voting to decide on relative priorities. Table A-8 shows the results.

The Analysis of Results

The results of the process turned out as expected, except for two significant items.

  1. "Built-in security" appeared very high on the priority list. This feature had been mentioned in previous interviews but had not made it to the top of anyone 's priority list. After a quick offline review, Alyssa noted that built-in security, such as the ability to flash lights, an optional horn, and optional emergency call-out system, was apparently not offered by any competitive system. The distributors commented that although they were surprised by this input, they felt that it would be a competitive differentiation and agreed that this should be a high-priority feature. Betty and Rusty agreed. Based on this conclusion, marketing decided to include this functionality and to position it as a unique, competitive differentiator in the marketplace . This became one of the defining features for HOLIS.

    Table A-8. Features from the HOLIS Workshop, Sorted by Priority

    ID

    Features

    Votes

    23

    Custom lighting scenes

    121

    16

    Automatic timing settings for lights and so on

    107

    4

    Built-in security features: lights, alarms, and bells

    105

    6

    100 percent reliability

    90

    8

    Easy-to-program, non-PC control unit

    88

    1

    Easy-to-program control stations

    77

    5

    Vacation settings

    77

    13

    Any light can be dimmed

    74

    9

    Uses my own PC for programming

    73

    14

    Entertain feature

    66

    20

    Close garage doors

    66

    19

    Automatically turn on closet lights when door opened

    55

    3

    Interface to home security system

    52

    2

    Easy to install

    50

    18

    Turn on lights automatically when someone approaches a door

    50

    7

    Instant lighting on/off

    44

    11

    Can drive drapes, shades, pumps, and motors

    44

    15

    Control lighting and so on via phone

    44

    10

    Interfaces to home automation system

    43

    22

    Gradual mode: slowly increase/decrease illumination

    34

    26

    Master control stations

    31

    12

    Easily expanded when remodeling

    25

    25

    Internationalized user interface

    24

    21

    Interface to audio/video system

    23

    24

    Restore after power fail

    23

    17

    Controls HVAC

    22

    28

    Voice activation

    7

    27

    Web site “like user presentation

    4

  2. In addition, feature 25, "Internationalized user interface," did not get a lot of votes. (This seemed to make sense to the team because the U.S.-based homeowners could not have cared less about how well the product sold in Europe!) The distributor, however, stated flatly that if the product was not internationalized at version 1.0, it would not be introduced in Europe. The team noted this position and agreed to explore the level of effort necessary to achieve internationalization in the 1.0 release.

HOLIS System-Level Use-Case Model Survey

Table A-9 lists some of the use cases for the HOLIS project. Note that the remainder of the use cases are deleted for brevity; a total of 20 system-level use cases are defined for v1.0 release.

Table A-9. HOLIS Use Cases

Name

Description

Actor(s)

Create Custom Lighting Scene

Resident creates a custom lighting scene.

Resident, Lights

Initiate Emergency Receiver

Resident initiates emergency action.

Resident

Control Light

Resident turns light(s) on or off or sets desired dim effect.

Resident, Lights

Program Switch

Homeowner/Programmer changes or sets the actions for a particular button/switch.

Homeowner/ Programmer

Remote Programming

Lumenations service provider does remote programming based on request from Resident.

Lumenations Services

On Vacation

Homeowner/Programmer sets vacation setting for extended away period.

Homeowner/ Programmer

Set Timing Sequence

Homeowner/Programmer sets time-based automated lighting sequence.

Homeowner/ Programmer

   


Managing Software Requirements[c] A Use Case Approach
Managing Software Requirements[c] A Use Case Approach
ISBN: 032112247X
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 257

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net