SINGING FROM THE SAME SHEET OF MUSIC


DO WHAT?


Poor feedback, coupled with the subjectivity and ambiguity of language, can hamper communica- tion between user and developer. But providing opportunities to see a problem through another’s perspective improves communication about requirements and expectations and yields a better product. (Image courtesy of PEO C3T)


expectations and results, meaning that users have an image of what they asked for, and it’s not what was delivered—a promised “chicken dinner” turns out to be dinner for a chicken.


MEASURING THE GULF For business systems, which are based on the automation of business processes, there are three major reasons for this gulf:


• Te software developer does not suf- ficiently understand the processes that the software is automating.


• Te process owners do not sufficiently understand software development.


• Te target process is not mature enough to be automated.


Bridging the gap between process own- ers and software developers is nominally covered with one or more documents cap- turing the requirements in terms of user needs or capability development. As it turns out, often these documents are the most direct interface between the owners of the process being automated and the developers performing the automation.


COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN Many classes in effective communication include an exercise in which one person or group writes a set of instructions for a task—making a paper airplane,


experience between the process owner writing the document and the software developer reading it.


for


example, or a peanut butter and jelly sandwich—and another person or group has to follow those instructions, literally, to produce the airplane or sandwich. Te results are often hilariously disastrous.


Two lessons can be gained from this exer- cise. First, language can be subjective; the more ambiguous the instructions, the more variety in the outcome. (Tis is also known as “the semantic prob- lem,” which is to say that we don’t all use the same words in the same ways.) Second, feedback between sender and receiver is crucial; without the ability of the instruction reader to follow up with the instruction writer, communication breaks down.


Documents communicating require-


ments for software development often suffer from both of these problems, fur- ther exacerbated by the lack of common


148


Traditional software development models, both sequential (e.g., waterfall) and incre- mental (e.g., evolutionary) do nothing to address this issue explicitly. Te concept


Even beyond testing, users will never be shy about providing assessments of our systems, and our attention to their detail will improve the usability of future systems.


Army AL&T Magazine


January-March 2016


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