Here is a useful summary on writing good requirements by Scott Sehlorst on the Tyner Blain blog. Scott derived and refined the list starting from Pragmatic Marketing's Requirements that Work Seminar.

Attributes of good requirements:
based on Pragmatic’s List (1-8) + Two Three Four More

Necessary => Valuable
Concise
Design Free
Attainable
Complete
Consistent
Unambiguous
Verifiable
Atomic
Passionate
Correct
Stylish

Scott provides links to articles on each attribute that provide additional details.

Chuck

What is a wiki?

Seth Godin blogged recently about a shortage of digital coaches. While I'm not a digital coach, I've been told I do a good job of boiling down a lot of information to explain complicated topics to non-experts. I maintain a website for my church, which includes a wiki, where other parishioners contribute content without any direct involvement from me. I received an email earlier this week from someone in the parish asking me, "what is a wiki?" After a quick search of the web- including wikipedia, I thought this would be a good topic for a blog.

The term wiki derives from the Hawaiian word for "fast." A wiki enables web pages and documents to be written collaboratively using a web browser without any specialized training or software. A single page in a wiki is referred to as a "wiki page", while the entire collection of pages, which are usually well interconnected by hyperlinks, is "the wiki". A wiki is essentially a database for creating, maintaining, browsing, and searching through information. A defining characteristic of wiki technology is the ease with which pages can be created and updated. Generally, there is no review before modifications are accepted.

Wikis allow visitors to create, modify or delete the content of a web page from their browser, and usually record the history of who changed what. Wikis enable creation of collaborative community websites, and are trending toward eliminating the need for specialized skills and software to create and edit content on a web page.

The administrator of the Wiki decides who is allowed to modify the site. Some wikis are open to changes by anyone, others limit modifications to trusted members, and some use moderators to arbitrate disagreements. The Wikipedia free encyclopedia is the best known Wiki, where hundreds of thousands of users add to the collective knowledge. where hundreds of thousands of users add to the collective knowledge. On Wikipedia, an entry started by one person is often iteratively refined by other contributors who collaborate to produce a consensus.

Regards,
Chuck

Product Management Blogs

One of my resolutions for 2008 is, as Steven Covey wrote, (habit # 7) "sharpen the saw".
Some blogs I will be watching more closely include:

Product Beautiful
The Cranky Product Manager
Silicon Valley Product Group
How To Be A Good Product Manager

Happy New year,
Chuck

Feeling Gratitude on Thanksgiving

I'm thankful for many things.

My life is blessed with family, friends, home, health, faith, a successful career, a beautiful place to live.

Some of the things I'm thankful for include:

• 27 years of happiness in marriage to VJ. I'm especially thankful for VJ's increasing committment to personal fitness.


• Our son Mike, finding success and independence with his first job.


• Our son Nick, who is doing so well in college that he is likely to complete his BS in Computer Science in 3-1/2 instead of four years, while pursuing his interests in powerrisers and video production.


• Our daughter Emily, who is getting off to a great start in her first year in college and whose intramural volleyball team won the college league.


• My Mom, who raised over $3,000 this summer to purchase a set of steps to enable handicapped, elderly or disabled people to use the municiapal pool where my parents swim.


• My Dad, who at age 84 is continuing on the recovery from triple by-pass surgery last May.


• The rest of my extended family, my sisters, in-laws, nieces and nephews, who I am looking forward to seeing more often over the holidays.


• The spiritual leadership of Fr. Bob, Fr. Matt, Fr. Ray Collins, Bishop Tobin, and the many members of St. Luke's parish family, especially Dave & Marilyn and the members of St. Luke's Alpha group, and the Men's Fellowship Group.


• Friends around town, at work and online.


• Boats, fishing, bikes, kayaks.


• The ability and motivation to share these gifts with others.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Chuck

Bill Cosby performed at URI Family Weekend

Saturday night VJ, Emily & I, along with 5,000 of our close friends had the pleasure of listening and laughing at a live performance performance by Bill Cosby at the Ryan Center. I've been a Bill Cosby fan since I was a kid. I use to enjoy his records, "200 mph", stories about "my brother Russel... Awe man you broke the bed", "Dad & the BELT, Noah, and many others." We loved his show Thursday nights on NBC. He held the sell out crowd fascinated for over two hours entertaining, enlightening, and dispensing personal wisdom through humorous obervations on fatherhood and families which made ordinary life seem magical. Young and old, kids and parents alike felt like he was speaking to them.

He invited a fellow graduate of Central High school in Philadelphia to join him on stage where they sang thier Alma Mater.

He finished the show with his classic dentist routine.

The dentist drills some more and you hear him make a mistake. [He makes motions
and sound of a dentist drill slipping] And to cover it up, they all say the same thing: "Okay, rinse." After rinsing in a dentist's office, you're gonna spit into this miniature toilet bowl. You have no bottom lip so you let it all fall out and say, "Thank God for gravity." Now you want to sit back, but you can't because hanging from your bottom lip is a long line and you can't get it off your bottom lip. Oh, if you wanna be gross, you can grab it and throw it over there. But you try to be smooth about it. And there's breaking over here and there's breaking over there. You try to blow it off. Just vibrating. So you figure, maybe if you sit back, it will snap in half. So you sit back. Now you have a line from the bowl to your bottom lip. The dentist looks at it and says, "Oh, look, a rainbow!"

By the end I was laughing so hard, tears were rolling down my cheeks. I haven't had that good a laugh in a long time.

New Coffee Mug from RI Blood Center

I dontated blood today and got my 2nd gallon mug from the RI Blood Center.


Here are four reasons why I make an effort to donate blood four times a year.

1. It fits with Harry's rule #7: Connect & commit.
2. It feels great doing something for others.
3. It takes less than an hour.
4. It really doesn't hurt.

Chuck

See what you mean

A peek at the vision for 3D design and collaboration from Dassault Systemes