What and Why Document
Posted in Book Review, Methodology, Requirements Gathering on September 20th, 2009 by Paul McArdle – 1 CommentThis commentary was initially included in a lengthy book review post about the book “Tale of Two Systems”. Given I will be referring to these two documents on an ongoing basis, I have shifted the commentary to this separate page.
In the Tale of Two Systems, this is called “The Concept Document”.
This, along with the “Statement of Work” are the two key documents referenced in the book. This model of only two key documents is certainly something worthwhile for us to follow…
Personally speaking (and knowing how language is loaded with semantics) I would prefer we even use the name “What and Why Document” to describe this one.
Paraphrasing the book, this is essentially the marketing document (i.e. the business case to which internal and external partners sign up). It contains such things as:
1) Financial projections
2) Who we think the users are
3) Their value proposition
4) How much we think they will be willing to pay
5) How much we think it will cost us to develop
6) The risks and threats we see.
In other words:
WHAT and WHY