Liv wild: an efficient project startup method-Quickstart

An efficient project startup method, Quickstart, is used to confirm that the key driver of the Project is understood before the project starts. Liv wild from thoughtworks UK introduced the concept and practice of quickstart to the audience.

HOST: Liv wild is invited to give a keynote speech entitled "quick start ".

Liv wild: This afternoon I will talk about requirement collection, especially agile. I hope to have a chat with you and have a good afternoon. If you have any questions, please ask me. First, let's make a simple self-introduction, and then talk about the needs of who will collect our customers? Who will analyze the demand? In an agile environment, how can we collect results and requirements? Next, how does thoughtworks help you effectively collect information in information and communication projects.

I have eight years of consulting experience. I used to work for a very large New York Software consulting company. I was a software developer and then engaged in business consulting, currently, it provides consulting services in investment banking, finance, retail, and other fields. In addition, I have participated in many projects, such as millions of projects and some practical applications of ICT management and e-government.

Our work is very effective. After arriving at thoughtworks, these people in my team wanted to have better data collection methods. We talked about thoughtworks this morning and we are a global business service company. We have 700 employees around the world. Below are the top 500 fortune Company customers.

Summing up the experience in the ICT field over the past 30 years: first, we need to know the needs of users, write down everything and ask them for signatures, and then strictly implement our plan, therefore, at the beginning, we evaluated the requirements. We can see that there are some very interesting ICT projects in the United States and Europe, and there is a very interesting example. For example, there is an automatic Baggage Handling System at danford airport in the United States, it is a waste to use the airport at such a high level. It took us $36.8 million to complete a system in the United States after a delay of three years. The same is true for Britain. We have a national air transportation service system, that is, air transportation. It was a 96-year Trojan. It was about to cost 0.35 billion, but it was about 0.6 billion. Why do we have these problems? The method for collecting project requirements is important because it does not help everyone meet such requirements. In such a project, we were a waterfall development method in the past. The software should be analyzed, designed, tested, and finally implemented, finally, we found a crash. We only need to collect data once in the project. Horizontal is a timeline that takes a long time and cannot reflect the real needs of customers. If there are 10 thousand requests, how do you understand so much? It is difficult for a person to understand what the real demand is?

Let's take a look at how agility handles requirements? This is a timeline, analysis, design, iteration 1, iteration 2. Analysis and Design run through the entire project process and throughout the entire project lifecycle. Finally, if you want to have a new car, you can make a new car ". (Demonstration) this case is to help the customer first understand the needs, but does not explain where our needs come from? Who is the customer first and who determines these needs? What we call customers are individuals or groups who share the same will. They tell us how to write software for programmers? They can determine some features and explain why this feature is necessary. This function can then be quantified, and each requirement contributes value to its business. It is not always possible to quantify the functionality. Of course you can still quantify it. There is no way to quantify it. Our customers should spare some time in the project cycle to communicate with the development team.

Of course, we cannot clearly explain some of our problems in some business processes. When we start our business, we should consider how big the business is. As a consulting company, should we ask ourselves whether we are qualified to solve such problems? Or we are willing to solve this problem. It is likely that this problem does not conform to our theory, and we may not have any special ability to solve it. In addition, how do you find a solution? Is there an idea now and how to integrate it into development. What we talked about just now is a story. Where did we talk about the customer's story? What is the cost? How long is it? What is the solution delivery structure? How can we change people's way of thinking? How to establish initial relationships with customers? For thoughtworks, it is very important for us to manage the relationship with our customers, which is conducive to the expansion of our consulting work. When you hear agile, you may not be able to hear ba. We are talking about customers and developers. I am a ba. What do I do every day? I never talk to customers, because Chinese customers seem unwilling to spend too much time communicating with us based on the model we advocate. They have their own things to do every day. We hope they can take time to communicate with us. Ba wants the customer to spend time on money. We need to know from the client why the software was developed? We need to ensure that our customers know what they really want and express clearly. That is, according to our analysis in the process, they change their wishes and the product eventually meets the requirements. Agile has various ways to help customers participate in our development process. It has many advantages over traditional methods. We use Ba to help customers understand problems and solve them. This is why thoughtworks calls the Information Collection Method Quick Start. Quickstart aims to understand where the demand comes from. It uses agile lines to provide a project product, process the project scale well, and establish the project requirement relationship, make sure that this project has the greatest possibility of success.

Therefore, the advantage of our Quickstart method is that it fully reflects the real needs of the business. Sometimes the initial needs of the project are different from the final needs. We can solve this problem. As a business, we need to understand the problems and solutions. We may have our own ideas in different projects and different ideas on solutions. Therefore, they should share their views on different issues. This understanding is also shared. It is shared with the people who implement the project, such as the IT department. For demand, it depends on how the demand conforms to the business value. agility can promote this understanding and implement it at the end. Each requirement can be associated with a certain business goal. That is to say, not only does it do anything, but every requirement is function-driven and can satisfy a specific business goal. As a Quick Start feature, Quickstart can be quickly involved in the analysis phase. Everyone can understand what they want to do. We have a firm foundation to finally deliver the project. We embrace changes, which can be integrated into the process. Such changes are encouraged by everyone. This is the beginning of our project.

This is often the case in some business projects. Our business staff, IT staff, and users may not communicate with each other or pay close attention to each other, and they are not very friendly to everyone. There is a confrontation between them, and their communication is also flawed. In this way, it is a big headache for users and they cannot get the products they want. Quickstart can help to change this relationship, eliminate bottlenecks, and communicate better at the end. It and end users can collaborate with each other. Finally, all stakeholders have a consensus to understand each other's needs. Let's take a look at what Quickstart looks like? It is both inclusive and cooperative. We have many seminars, including representatives from the IT department and end users. They can reach consensus and achieve it quickly. Quickstart generally takes four weeks. After four weeks, we all agree that we are doing this very fast and we do not have to have a very fast exchange. If you want to change your mind, you must tell us that our model is interactive and visualized, not through text. In addition, we often use images to make them more interactive. We discuss the cost-effectiveness of all things. That is to say, people from the business department will tell us what they need, and people from our development department will say what the cost will be. What we make should all be reasonable decisions. These decisions depend on what our business is, and what is the cost of doing so? This is the preliminary analysis. The analysis at the early stage is different from the development method of the waterfall model in the past.

We conduct continuous analysis throughout the project cycle, which is characteristic of quickstart. (Figure) This is a work scenario. We can see that it is composed of story cards. (figure) This is our routine meeting. Customers discuss what their needs are. Then we have four weeks, there is a final presentation at the end of each week, and a final presentation at the end. We have a presentation almost every day, so that we can get feedback from customers.

Quickstart can be customized. You may have your own ideas. As you improve your understanding of the problem, you may change your original needs. The initial idea may be different from the original intention. We embrace this kind of change and encourage it. We hope that we will not simply repeat existing systems, but innovate. We need to discuss and discuss each day. We can only know what we will do tomorrow after today's work is completed.

In our work discussions, we will trim the content and ensure that the analysis method we use is best suited to our needs. This ensures that the staff can use these tools. In particular, we have seen that if we use a very traditional method to collect work, it is not suitable for changing situations. We must reflect the value of this business. This requires that a product come out every time you make a summary. We can see that we have a project, and we have every plan to launch. We hope that every start will be very fast, analyze and process the collected information again. At last, we will review it. Then we started the second feedback, evaluated the previous conclusion, and left useful information behind to pave the way for the next communication. Quickstart is actually not a complete alternative to analysis and design. The iterative analysis we make does not have a ready-made development plan to provide. There are constantly new requirements in the analysis process. Therefore, every time a lab is repeated, the results are obtained and the next experiment is performed based on the results. We encountered some problems in the first iteration, and new problems may be added to our story card. Quickstart is based on the mode. People have different thinking modes. For example, the mode of thinking is different from that of another person. When a person reviews and describes a certain thing, it may be different from that of others. The expression of reading the same thing is different. What we need to do is to write their views on the chart or on the blackboard. These ideas may be different, but the content presented on the board is better centralized, and the final consensus will be displayed after repeated experiments.

The current mode is based on Quickstart, which is based on some prepriority project directories and some Schema-based models. In this case, we must prioritize investments based on priority projects. In addition, we must reflect this kind of priority. This mode is also required for coding, because every mode is constantly changing and updated. Therefore, there are different methods for updating, and each mode will change with the change of requirements. First, from the business perspective, there are some goals, such as the call center. Our goal is to clearly define what our goals are in each iteration cycle, list the projects with higher priority.

There are also some business cases that may use low-capacity channels. This is a financial model. In this process, we will distinguish between low-level and high-level analysis processes. This analysis process includes a manifestation of priority. In particular, our goals are embodied at different levels. Time also has different requirements. These are all functional requirements, and the requirements for each case are different, and even the requirements for time are different. We need to list these requirements when doing so. From the developer's perspective, we must connect all these layers, and understand that each requirement is closely related to a specific business purpose, not isolated.

This is usually done in Quickstart. We need to list our requirements and the requirements of low-level stories. At the same time, developers have any special requirements. At the same time, we need to find the project itself to meet Personalized Requirements. This analysis is not a traditional analysis, nor is it a regular method, because there are constant changes, and only changes remain unchanged. If we have done a lot at the beginning, it may be a waste at the end, so it is an analysis in the process of constant changes. In particular, we must have a clear goal in the Process of high-level operations. When the goal remains the same, it may change and we will not change our original intention. What are the limitations of this layer? We also encounter iterations throughout the process. The proof we use should be a value. Our ability is the step that can be expanded, and we should consider whether it can reflect more value from which perspective.

Quickstart does not do a lot of analysis work, so we need to continue to discuss it. In addition, our group discussion and analysis work is very specific. We can also use the current analysis function or analysis method for the next step, but the analysis function is constantly changing. We also need to conduct a final review, for example, whether the business goals have been fulfilled? Check the project acceptance results and see if these priorities are reflected? Can our roadmap be better reflected and followed? When our products were launched, what we had to do was not whether the project was completed, but whether the requirements and objectives of the project were reflected and implemented. We also need to clearly see the current situation and possible changes in the future. In particular, some projects span some fields. during the entire process, every step and every analysis function may be specific and cannot be expanded in the long run. Therefore, this iteration process is very complicated. There is also a very good architecture model, especially when we use an efficient prototype, we may be faced with very specific work in real life. However, the technologies we use may not be suitable for the real needs of consumers, so we need to put the technology aside first and first look at what the customer needs? In particular, we need to analyze the main story chain or story directory? Then we can find the most important thing that requires a lot of effort and finally make a very high-level plan. Maybe we cannot meet all the projects and requirements in a short time. However, we are constantly changing, and this is better than analyzing a lot of files, because people's judgment is very short-term, in particular, the short-term value or its expected value is different from the analysis made at the beginning and the result obtained. What services can we provide? For example, if we have many files, we must create a business model. Then, let's make a summary of what we do most and how to ensure that our goal can be achieved. If it fails, we have to make a decision: Should this plan be implemented as originally planned? For example, in a business process, we must determine what will participate in the process, what their needs and restrictions are, and then draw a list. After these requirements are listed in the directory, we can see what is the main and what is the secondary? Who is doing this job? What we often do is to collect and organize analysis by customers and core teams. For example, we have BA, QA, and developers, and each person performs their respective duties, analysis and coordination are required every day. We also need to make a coordination throughout the operation process, and everyone must be very clear about their work. Ba, QA, and developers should have good communication. We can allow Ba to ensure that these requirements can be well interconnected, and everyone knows what their work is. Of course, we also have a field expert who needs to know what he is talking about and how the project is going. For example, if you work eight hours a day, what is the goal of each person's work in eight hours, and whether the goal is achieved at the end of each day? During the noon break, they may be able to further communicate. I found that this communication method can enable the team members to constantly know what agility is? There may be some technical problems in the process, and they can also solve and work together during the conversation.

Project staff sometimes have inherent ideas on some aspects, but such inherent ideas may be extreme. If comprehensive communication is required, if you make an evaluation, you can know how long it will take to break in and communicate with each link in the work every week for four hours. What does Quickstart mean? This is a schedule, indicating the direction of quickstart. They hold regular meetings, starting from every morning, and then all morning they will see what they want to do, and how they choose this for further communication during lunch. Every afternoon, they should review the work of the day to ensure that the work process is very fast and accessible. These staff from the business can also participate in the process, so that all parties can be satisfied with the results at the end of the process, and each presentation process can also show the results of each team, this summary is very comprehensive.

Next we will have a Core Group for Analysis and a group for analysis in the afternoon. When we communicate with business and technical personnel, we also have a process where everyone is standing and reviewing. The time is very short. This means that our work cannot be done very quickly every time, but this is our goal. We must understand the psychology and needs of consumers, which is the top priority. Thank you. Let's take a look at your questions?

Q: As you mentioned earlier, requirements are constantly changing. I would like to ask how the Agile design method tracks each other with the design?

Liv wild: Analysis and demand at the same time. We have technical staff to ensure their design. The design in the analysis is constantly repeated. Our feedback may come from customers and technicians who need to quickly and without delay to obtain such a requirement, this ensures that there is no time gap between requirements and analysis throughout the design process.

Q: Generally, there must be a requirement specification for the traditional design method. The customer will finally accept the entire project according to the requirement specification. If the entire requirement is constantly changing, a requirement document can be formed at what stage for you to understand the status and acceptance of the entire system. For an enterprise-level project, such as a bank project, a person may not be able to clearly understand the entire project. Maybe everyone is only responsible for a local project. In the end, what is the basis for acceptance of the entire project? At what stage are the actual documents that ultimately correspond to the entire requirement?

Liv wild: We make sure that each iteration of demand and analysis is in progress. There is no so-called issue period, and every iteration period requires decisions. For example, in iteration 4, it is very likely that it is different from the iteration 0, and there is a conflict between them. Such a cycle always gives feedback to itself. That is to say, the decision should be correct.

Bear day: we will arrange for thoughtworks Chinese colleagues to communicate with you later. Thank you for your wonderful speech!