Agile Requirements: Systems Visualization in the 21st Century

Length of workshop:
One day

General Overview:
The pressure to (re)design our businesses around evolving technologies is making it mandatory for organizations to model their businesses and business requirements faster and faster; and as systems become more integrated, they have to involve a greater number of users. While enormous effort has been expended over the last couple of decades on computer databases and programming, far less has been devoted to developing new ways to develop world class business models and requirements.

Agile methodologies (e.g., extreme programming, SCRUM, Crystal methods, etc.) have been rising in popularity. Instead of focusing just on rigorous processes and tons of documentation, these methodologies focus on quickly -- usually within a couple of weeks -- producing working programs that do a small part of the total requirements. Every week or two until the end of the project, another working program with more functionality than the last is developed. Over time, agile practitioners have found that they can come up with effective systems much more quickly than they could using traditional approaches. Systems managers and developers are now beginning to understand just how important developing interim versions of working software is to the success of their projects. The downside of an agile approach is the lack of documentation that tracks the decisions (steps) made in the process.

Next Practices addresses this problem. Like other agile approaches, Agile Requirements, or Next Practices/Methodology focuses on producing live working models (prototypes) as a means of communicating between users and developers and stimulating creative thinking about the business.

Leader: Ken Orr

Workshop Goals:
In this workshop, Ken Orr demonstrates how business modelers and software developers can work with their customers in real-time to produce new business systems models that users (and developers) can see, use, and test. Orr will show you how your organization can model its businesses and prototype these models using the Next Practice integrated business modeling and systems requirements methodology.

You'll learn about the Next Practices methodology and advanced modeling tool set (Next Practice Development Environment [NP/DE]) that makes it possible to visualize systems requirements the same way that architects and engineers can visualize buildings and products using CAD/CAM tools. You'll discover how you can illustrate high-level business context and workflow diagrams, database designs, and working prototypes using the Next Practices/Methodology (NP/M) integrated approach, which is based on "time-boxed management" and targets 6- to 12-week intensive requirements projects.

As a result of attending this workshop, you will understand:

  • The similarity and differences between NP and traditional requirements projects
  • The skills needed for a successful NP team
  • The roles in an NP project: Requirement Project Manager, NP Trainer/Facilitator, NP Prototyper/Librarian, Subject Matter Experts, Technology Experts
  • How teams of users and developer can move quickly from high-level models (context and workflow diagrams) of their businesses down to low-level user specifications (screens, reports, etc.) and then to prototypes using real data
  • How to use NP/M's "systems visualization" technique to bring the advantages of heavy-user involvement together with the use of advanced tools
  • How to develop graphical business process and workflow models along with working prototypes for complex applications
  • How to use the Next Practice/Development Environment tools for business modeling, automatic database design, code generation and prototyping, as well as a Web-based collaboration framework
  • How to develop prototypes for a wide range of databases (Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, Informix, Access, and others) and languages (Java, C#, VB, C/SQL, COBOL, and RPG)
  • How changes are automatically made to all appropriate documentation whenever a change is made to the prototype


As a result of implementing the lessons learned in this workshop, your organization will be able to take advantage of the bottom-line benefit of using NP/M: Users get something that they can see, touch and manipulate. If they don't like the way the system behaves, they can change it before it's too late. At the end of an NP/M project, a very large portion of the risk is removed from the project. Management knows the project is worth doing, and everyone has a common point of departure.

Intended Audience:
IT managers, project managers, developers, business modelers, database designers

For more information on bringing this workshop to your organization, contact Dennis Crowley by phone at +1 781 641 5125, by fax at +1 781 648 1950, or by e-mail at dcrowley@cutter.com.
Agile Requirements: Systems Visualization in the 21st Century