The Case Study: The HOLIS Requirements Workshop

Let's get back to our case study. While the interviewing process was under way, the development team met with the marketing department and decided to hold a requirements workshop for the HOLIS project.

The Attendees

After thinking through the issues, the team decided not to bring in an outside facilitator but instead to have Rick, director of marketing, facilitate the workshop. The team also decided to have two development team members participate in the workshop: Alyssa, the product manager, and Marcy, the software development manager. The team felt that both Alyssa and Marcy would speak for the team and also be able to contribute content since they were both new homeowners. Other team members would not participate but would simply attend the workshop in order to observe the process, listen to the customers, and see the results immediately.

The team also decided to include representation from the four "classes" of customers and invited the following participants :

1. Distributors : E.C., CEO of the company's largest distributor, and Raquel, the general manager of the company's exclusive distributor in Europe

2. Rusty, a local custom homebuilder with experience in purchasing and installing competitive systems in the marketplace

3. Betty, a local electrical contractor

4. Prospective homeowners, identified with Betty's help, who were in the process of building or were considering building high-end residences

Table 12-2 provides more detail on the participants.

Table 12-2. 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 12-2 provides a perspective on the workshop.

Figure 12-2. HOLIS requirements workshop structure

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 12-3 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.

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. ^[1]

   ^[1] This issue demonstrates one of the problems with cumulative voting. Not all stakeholders are created equal. Failure to achieve internationalization, which had not been on the "radar screens" of the team prior to the workshop, would have been a strategic requirements misstep of significant proportions .

Table 12-3. 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