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Once the hierarchy of requirements has been defined and the value that each carries, the next step is to define the collaborative processes at each level that ultimately serve the goal of delivering business requirements smoothly and in high quality. How do you organize the various levels of collaboration to achieve this ultimate goal? We will discuss two aspects: 1) the levels of collaboration and the positioning and objectives of each level; 2) Business as the source to drive the overall collaboration.
The levels of collaboration as well as the positioning and objectives of each level are shown in the figure below. Based on the hierarchical relationship of needs, we divide the collaboration into three levels from top to bottom. They are business operation layer, product delivery layer and technology implementation layer. Of these three levels, the higher you go, the more business and goal oriented, the lower you go, the more technical and engineering oriented.
Three levels of business requirement delivery
Next, we describe the collaboration points and goals at each of the three levels.
Business Operations Layer The business operations layer is at the top and is the source and core that drives the overall collaboration. We want to build a business-driven collaboration model — leveraging and coordinating overall product delivery and technical efforts through the business.
The business operation layer is in charge of the business personnel. The core object of their management is the business requirements, and the goal is the efficiency and effect of the delivery of the business requirements.
In the business operation layer, the end-to-end delivery process of business requirements should be managed first, including: creating or receiving business requirements; Planning the release and version of business requirements; Manage and track the delivery of business requirements; Acceptance and release of business requirements; Feedback and improve business design and planning, etc.
Up, business requirements are aligned or aligned to goals, based on which business requirements are created and planned; Or to respond to customer demands, customer demands into business needs. After the business requirement is released, it should be able to form a feedback loop based on its docking goals and customer demands.
Down the line, the business requirements are broken down into product requirements and assigned to the corresponding product delivery teams. At the same time, we should coordinate the delivery process of related product requirements, align their progress, timely find bottlenecks, and accelerate the realization of business requirements.
In order to ensure the delivery efficiency and effectiveness of the business, the business operations layer needs three core competencies.
Business planning ability: Business planning refers to making choices and deciding what to do and when to do it based on business goals, customer demands, market conditions and resource constraints. Delivery coordination ability: split and distribute product requirements based on business requirements, coordinate the delivery process of product requirements, find and deal with problems and bottlenecks, and finally ensure the smooth delivery of business requirements; Business feedback and adjustment ability: Collect qualitative and quantitative feedback from users and the market immediately after requirements are issued, and adjust subsequent planning and business evolution based on the feedback to ensure the effectiveness of business evolution and iteration. These three capabilities form a complete planning, delivery, and alignment loop. Accelerating this closed loop and improving its effectiveness will help organizations improve the efficiency and effectiveness of business delivery to better meet customer needs and business goals, which are the long-term goals of the business operations layer.
Product Delivery Layer The product delivery layer is responsible by the product delivery team, which includes the product manager and the development team. The core object they focus on and manage is product requirements. The goal is to improve the continuous delivery capability of product requirements, including speed, predictability and quality, and ultimately service the delivery of business requirements.
In the product delivery layer, the first step is to manage the end-to-end delivery process of product requirements, including: receiving product requirements separated from business requirements, or planning product requirements; Schedule product requirements or make iteration plans; Track and manage the product requirements delivery process; Feedback and improve product delivery efficiency. The product delivery layer aligns business delivery upwards and technical and engineering activities downwards.
Up, product deliveries align with business deliveries. First, the content, plan and schedule of product requirements are aligned with the ongoing business requirements to ensure the speed and quality of business delivery. Secondly, in order to ensure long-term efficiency, products should also be future-oriented planning and evolution, such as: product layout and preparation in advance for future business development; Or for long-term efficiency and elimination of technical debt product restructuring and precipitation.
Down the line, product requirements are broken down into technical tasks, with different people responsible. The product delivery layer coordinates the progress of technical tasks, detects bottlenecks and problems in a timely manner, and ensures smooth and high quality delivery of product requirements.
In order to improve the delivery efficiency of product requirements, the business operations layer needs to build three core competencies:
Planning and evolution capabilities: Product requirements respond to immediate business requirements with a focus on long-term efficiency. Scheduling and Delivery Capability: Decide the order and pace of requirements delivery, and manage the delivery process to ensure the rapid delivery of product requirements. Deliver performance improvement capabilities: improve team collaboration, product architecture and design, engineering and technical practices, etc. These three capabilities form a closed loop from planning, delivery to improvement, ensuring continuous efficiency in product delivery.
Technical implementation layer The technical implementation layer is responsible by technical personnel, including development, testing, etc. The core object of concern for the technical implementation layer is the change of the system (application). They split the task or create the change based on the product requirements, and complete the development, testing, harmonization, and change release.
At the technical implementation level, the first step is to provide developers with the tools, environment, and mechanisms that allow them to do their work efficiently and ensure the quality of delivery. On this basis, the work of the technical implementation layer should be aligned to the product delivery, and the work should be aligned to complete and deliver the product requirements as quickly as possible.
To sum up, based on the structure of requirements, we divide the delivery of requirements into three levels. At each level, there are responsible people who are focused on getting their work done, but who are also able to collaborate with each other to achieve smooth and high quality delivery of business requirements. Among them, the business is not only the source driving this collaborative process, but also the goal of the collaboration. In the next section, we’ll focus on how to make this collaborative process more efficient and effective.
Above we examined the levels of collaboration. Each level has its own goals and special responsible roles. Their management objects and work tasks are different. In order to make them work more efficiently, they should have their own exclusive collaboration space.
Business-driven layered collaboration
The figure above shows the business-driven collaboration approach, which divides the collaboration into three layers based on the hierarchy of requirements, each of which is interconnected to form a whole. We will discuss this in three aspects: 1) create a dedicated workspace for each level; 2) Connect all levels to achieve efficient collaboration; 3) Connecting and structuring process assets with requirements.
Create a dedicated workspace for each level, responsible for roles, objectives, management objects, work responsibilities, workspace, business layer, business personnel respond to and meet business demands, achieve business goals, and focus on business needs. At the same time pay close attention to its affiliate product demand Create or receive a delivery plan or version of the needs of the business needs of the business planning unbundling products demand management tracking business requirements delivery process inspection and release business needs feedback and improve the business design and planning of work space product layer product delivery team (including the product manager and technical team) Planning and Delivering Product Requirements Meeting the short and long term requirements of business delivery is centered on product requirements, Focus on its technical tasks at the same time To accept or to create products of demand management and tracking the product demand delivery processes Scheduling or demand the product, make product demand technical task feedback iteration planning split the delivery process and improve the products delivery space technology layer technology development to complete tasks and high quality and instant delivery requirements System change and other personal tasks receive, manage work task development, coordinate and validate integration requirements, and change the overall goals of the system developer workbench to streamline the end-to-end delivery process, ensure process quality, align work at all levels, and ultimately achieve smooth and high-quality delivery of business requirements. Workspaces for job responsibilities for different roles
The above table lists the characteristics of each level. Each level has a different leader (or team) with different goals, people to manage, and job responsibilities. In order to improve the efficiency and quality of each level of work, they should have their own dedicated workspace, including: business workspace, product delivery space, and developer workbench. These Spaces can be configured in different digital tools. Different R&D management tools are implemented in different ways, and it may be a separate project; It can also be a logical view.
In digital tools, what distinguishes each space is: 1) support different types of requirements; 2) Different types of requirements have different workflows (the stages that the requirements need to go through from beginning to completion); 3) Different functional services (such as version planning, iteration scheduling, etc.) should be applied in each space.
The types of requirements supported by the business workspace are business requirements and product requirements, with the business requirements dominating and the product requirements split based on the business requirements. Clearly define the workflow of the business requirements in the business workspace (see Figure 2 for an example). Typical functional services applied in a business workspace are requirements resolution, business planning, and business review.
The types of requirements supported by the product delivery space are product requirements and work tasks, which are product-oriented and support the separation of tasks from product requirements. The workflow of the business requirements is clearly defined in the product delivery space (see Figure 2 for an example). Typical functional services used in the product delivery space include iteration scheduling, task splitting, progress statistics, etc.
Connecting requirements and requirements processes at all levels to achieve efficient collaboration between the above levels of workspaces and focus on work. At the same time, all levels are interconnected to form an organic whole. The following figure reflects the connection relationship among them. The following sections describe the collaboration processes at each level and the connections between them, based on the most typical scenarios.
Connections at all levels
Business people work in the business workspace and manage the end-to-end delivery of requirements. They create, accept, analyze, and plan requirements. The planned business requirements are broken down into product requirements, which are typically done by the business people together with the product managers for each product. The split product requirements are assigned to the corresponding product delivery teams.
Working in the product delivery space, the product delivery team accepts split product requirements or creates requirements in-house, performs product design and requirements clarification, completes requirements scheduling, splits technical tasks, develops and integrates requirements, and completes deployment.
Technical developers work in individual workspaces, accept or split technical tasks, create changes, perform system development and integration harmonizations, submit code, complete continuous integration validation, and publish changes.
The linkage relationship between the business workspace and the product delivery space is as follows: 1) the product requirements divided by the business requirements will be allocated to the corresponding product delivery space, and the product requirements and the business requirements will maintain an attribution relationship; 2) When the product requirements of subordinates are scheduled, the corresponding business requirements will enter the state of development; 3) When all the subordinate product requirements of the business requirements are completed, the business requirements enter the state of “waiting for acceptance”
The linkage relationship between product delivery space and individual workbench is as follows: 1) product requirements will be assigned to individuals, and tasks of demand splitting will also be assigned to people. These requirements and tasks appear automatically in the personal workspace; 2) Individual updates to requirements and tasks will be automatically reflected in the corresponding product and business space; 3) When the subordinate tasks start to develop, the corresponding product requirements will enter the state of development; 4) When all subordinate tasks of product requirements are completed, product requirements enter the state of “to be tested”.
These three levels are decoupled from each other so that different roles can focus on their respective responsibilities and goals and accomplish their work efficiently. They are connected to each other and constitute an organic whole. Through this organic whole, we leverage the business to drive the end-to-end delivery process, ensuring process quality, aligning work at all levels, and ultimately achieving smooth and high quality delivery of business requirements.
Connecting and structuring process asset requirements delivery with requirements is knowledge work. There are a large number of outputs in the process, such as: discussion records, temporary or formal documentation, UE/UI design, code, test cases, application change records, etc. These are important knowledge assets.
How do you manage the creation of these assets, organize and index them structurally? This is an important challenge. It is about the efficiency of communication and collaboration, but also about the value of the intellectual assets of the organization.
Relation of outputs to requirements during delivery
As shown in the figure above, the asset should be associated with the unit of value in the development process, which is the hierarchy of requirements described above. In the value stream of requirements delivery, we create and associate related assets. For example, when the business requirement is created, it is associated with the description of the original business demand, while the analysis of the business requirement is associated with the relevant business analysis document. Related documents and test cases in the product design process; Correlate related applications, changes, and code during technical task delivery.
This connects the digital assets developed directly to customer value on the one hand and to value creation activities on the other. Connecting these information to avoid information islands not only improves the efficiency of communication and collaboration, but also makes assets precipitation orderly and structured, which is convenient for information retrieval and use, and gives full play to the value of digital assets in the process of research and development.
Summary: Overall delivery process and feedback loop
Overall delivery process and feedback loop
Above we defined and introduced a business-driven collaboration process. As shown in the figure above, this process includes three aspects: business, product, and technology.
The first is the business delivery and feedback loop (orange in the figure), where the core focus is on the rapid response and delivery of the business and the achievement of business objectives; The second is the product delivery and feedback loop (blue in the figure), whose core focus is the rapid delivery of product requirements, the evolution of the product, and the continuous improvement of product delivery efficiency; The third is technology and engineering practices (green in the figure), whose core focus is on infrastructure and continuous improvement of technology and engineering capabilities to lay the foundation for product and business effectiveness.
This delivery process is both layered, decoupled and organically connected, helping us to get through the various stages and levels of delivery. It enables the entire organization to coordinate, maximize efficiency, and achieve accurate response to the business and rapid iterative evolution.