I have seen many software projects suffering from few common dysfunctions. A few dysfunctions are mentioned below:
A few years back I read a very interesting analogy presented by Scott Davis,U.S. Below are the excerpts I would like to share with readers.
[My microwave oven only has one button: “add a minute.” To boil a cup of water for my coffee, I press the button three times. To melt cheese on my crackers, one click. To warm up a flour tortilla, I press “add a minute” and then open the door after 15 seconds.
Suppose that I have a slice of cold pizza that I want to warm up. According to the manufacturer’s directions, I should press the “menu” button.
I am now faced with the options “speedcook” or “reheat.” (Um, “reheat,” I guess, although I’m kind of hungry. I wonder if speedcook will be any faster than reheat?)
“Beverage,” “pasta,” “pizza,” “plate of food,” “sauce,” or “soup”? (I choose “pizza,” although it does have sauce on it, and it is on a plate.)
“Deli/Fresh” or “Frozen”? (Neither, actually—it’s leftover delivery pizza. I’ll choose “Deli/Fresh,” I guess.) “1 slice,” “2 slices,” “3 slices,” or “4 slices”?
Amazon.com only has one button: “one-click purchase.” Oh, sure, I had to type in my address and my credit card number the first time I visited, but now I am one click away from my impulse buy.]
The well-known 80:20 rule in software says that 80% of users only use 20% of features.
The other example of such feature-rich products I see is my Mobile phone. :-)
I am not sure how many times I used the fascinating features like 'Gesture Recognizer' it offers.
There are many ways Product owner/Stakeholders can decide the priority of the features needed. One of those I have explained in my other post.
We will keep on discussing the other dysfunctions in forthcoming Agile nuggets, stay tuned!
- Stakeholders made the things complicated than they need to be
- The real customer requirement was based on a business need and was something very simple but there was a communications gap between business analyst and programmers
- Gluttony -Product Owner
- Gluttony -ScrumMaster
- Gluttony -Development team
- Habit of taking Debts (Technical/Non-technical)
- Tight coupling of features and functions
- A few more…
A few years back I read a very interesting analogy presented by Scott Davis,U.S. Below are the excerpts I would like to share with readers.
[My microwave oven only has one button: “add a minute.” To boil a cup of water for my coffee, I press the button three times. To melt cheese on my crackers, one click. To warm up a flour tortilla, I press “add a minute” and then open the door after 15 seconds.
Would a one-button microwave oven ever make it out of the planning committee?
Probably not. I can tell by the (never used) features on my microwave that the committee favored complexity over simplicity. Of course, they probably cloaked “complexity” in the euphemism “feature-rich.” No one ever starts out with the goal of making a product that is unnecessarily complex. The complexity comes along accidentally. Suppose that I have a slice of cold pizza that I want to warm up. According to the manufacturer’s directions, I should press the “menu” button.
I am now faced with the options “speedcook” or “reheat.” (Um, “reheat,” I guess, although I’m kind of hungry. I wonder if speedcook will be any faster than reheat?)
“Beverage,” “pasta,” “pizza,” “plate of food,” “sauce,” or “soup”? (I choose “pizza,” although it does have sauce on it, and it is on a plate.)
“Deli/Fresh” or “Frozen”? (Neither, actually—it’s leftover delivery pizza. I’ll choose “Deli/Fresh,” I guess.) “1 slice,” “2 slices,” “3 slices,” or “4 slices”?
I have no idea how much longer this interrogation will last, so I press Cancel and then the “add a minute” button.
Amazon.com only has one button: “one-click purchase.” Oh, sure, I had to type in my address and my credit card number the first time I visited, but now I am one click away from my impulse buy.]
The well-known 80:20 rule in software says that 80% of users only use 20% of features.
- 45% of features were never used;
- 19% used rarely;
- 16% sometimes;
- Only 20% were used frequently or always.
The other example of such feature-rich products I see is my Mobile phone. :-)
I am not sure how many times I used the fascinating features like 'Gesture Recognizer' it offers.
There are many ways Product owner/Stakeholders can decide the priority of the features needed. One of those I have explained in my other post.
We will keep on discussing the other dysfunctions in forthcoming Agile nuggets, stay tuned!
