Section 26. Waiting Room

26. Waiting Room

The waiting room holds requirements that cannot, for one reason or another, be part of the initial release of the product. If you are competent at gathering requirements, your users may often be inspired to think of more requirements than you can fit within the constraints of the project. While you may not want to include all of these requirements in the initial version of the product, neither do you want to lose them.

When you decide to put a requirement into the waiting room, you do not need to write it in detail. It might simply be one sentence summarizing an idea that someone has had. Just write until the idea is trapped well enough for you to be able to assess it later.

The waiting room has a calming effect on everyone because it shows their ideas are being taken seriously. Your users and client know the requirements are not forgotten, merely parked until it is time to review them and make decisions about whether they will be incorporated in the product.