Start with how the work gets done
We follow a task from start to finish to see who does what, what they need to know and where the work gets held up. That helps us decide what the software should handle and where someone needs to make a judgement.
- Making handovers clear
- When a request passes from one team to another, people need to know what has happened and who needs to act next. We use those handovers to decide what the software should show and which updates it should record.
- Deciding who can do what
- The rules need to reflect how people use the system. In a product shared by several organisations, each team should see its own records. Within a team, creating a request and approving it might be separate responsibilities.
- Connecting the tools people use
- When two systems share information, we agree which one owns each record and how updates pass between them. If a transfer fails, the team needs to see what is missing and know how to retry it without creating a duplicate.
- Changing software people depend on
- We read the code alongside the records and workflows it supports. A change to how bookings are handled, for example, needs to work for bookings already in the system as well as those made after release.
Before a new build or a change
We use these questions to work out what a first release needs to do and how it will fit into the work already happening.
What should the first release make easier?
Pick a task that people need to complete from start to finish. Work out which steps the software needs to support, including what happens when information is missing or a request needs approval.
Which records and tools need to come with it?
Find out where the information lives today, which records need to move and which tools people will still use. That gives us a starting point for testing imports and connections.
How will people start using it?
Agree who will try it first, how we will check that the work still gets done and who will take care of the software after release.
Journal entries
Notes on building and maintaining software, from working through a new feature to understanding how an existing system behaves.
No journal entries have been published on this topic yet.