Brainstorm the Requirements (Process Notes 2.1.4)


Brainstorming is a method for generating ideas. The intention here is to produce as many requirements for the new product as possible. Do not be concerned about whether the ideas from the brainstorm session are all usable. The intention is simply to create as many ideas as possible. Subsequently, you will eliminate any that are too expensive, impractical, impossible, and so on.

Here are some simple rules for brainstorming:

  • Participants in the brainstorming process should come from as wide a range of disciplines with as broad a range of experience as possible. This brings many more creative ideas to the session.

  • Suspend, or at least defer, judgment, evaluation, and criticism. Simply record requirements as they are generated. The practice of not judging, evaluating, or criticizing is the fastest way to develop a creative and energized atmosphere for the brainstorm group.

  • Produce lots of ideas. Come up with as many ideas as possible. Quantity will in time produce quality.

  • Try to come up with as many ideas as you can that are unconventional, unique, crazy, wild, and so on. The wilder the idea, the more creative it probably is, and the more likely it is to turn into a really useful requirement.

  • Piggyback a new idea on top of another.

  • Write every idea down, without censoring. "Ideas disappear faster than water evaporates unless written down" (Alex Osborn, the founder of brainstorming).

  • If you get stuck, "seed" the session with a word pulled randomly from a dictionary. This word serves as a starting point for word association in the process of generating ideas.

After the brainstorming session, the results can be evaluated, and the best requirements can be explored by more conventional methods.




Mastering the Requirements Process
Mastering the Requirements Process (2nd Edition)
ISBN: 0321419499
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 371

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