What Oprah Can Teach You About Software Requirements

My wife's a fan of the Oprah Winfrey Show (yes, I've been known to watch it from time to time myself). A few days ago, my wife told me about a woman who was on the show. The woman was telling Oprah about her philosophy that people only ever have good intentions, even when they're doing something that's infuriating to you.

Somebody cut you off in traffic? Maybe they were trying to get home to a sick child. Somebody else tell you that you can't take that training class you were promised earlier this year? Maybe those savings will let your office-mate keep his job. If you're willing to look for them, you can usually find a possible good intention behind people's actions. But why should I care about their reasons? I'm hacked off!

The speaker's point wasn't that we should be nice to other people because of their intentions. Instead, it was that we'd all be much happier if we assumed the best of others' intentions. Rather than getting mad because Sally is out to get me, or Tom is just plain mean, or Jack is a jerk, you can be happy because they're each trying to do something good. Sound a little too Bobby McFerrin? A little too "turn that frown upside down," or "buck up little camper?" It certainly did to me.

But, given my rather nasty mood one day, I decided to give it a shot. It couldn't make me feel any worse, plus it would get me brownie points at home. For the past week, whenever someone has done something that annoys me, I've looked for a possible reason why they did what they did (I'm not actually asking anybody why, just pondering possibilities). And it's working.

For example, when I thought about why somebody was driving so fast, or tailgating me, or zipping in and out of traffic, I wondered who they were in such a hurry to see. That simple change of perspective made a huge difference in how I perceived their actions (and by proxy, them as people). And then I thought about the people I'd be in a hurry to see, which led me to think about my friends and family, not about the reckless driver.

Before you ask, "And this has what, exactly, to do with product management?," (unless you already have), I'll get to the point. In our work, we deal primarily with people, and dealing with people is hard. It's easy to let someone else's actions (or inactions) frustrate me. But now I have a tool to help me reduce that frustration. And more importantly for my customers, asking, "Why did she do/say that?" is a great way to discover the real requirements hiding just out of sight.

Go on ... give it a try. Hopefully it'll surprise you, too. And if not, I'm sure Oprah would love to hear from you!

Why Bother?

Why even bother? When's the last time you asked yourself that? Was it something trivial -- "Oh, I forgot to get canned lentils on aisle 6, but I'll be back in the store tomorrow, so why bother to go back and get them now?" Or was it something more meaningful, like, "Nobody ever reviews my process flow diagrams for this project, so why bother to spend any real effort on them?" Hopefully the majority of your "why bothers" are trivial, but I'd expect there's a more serious one every now and then.

My personal favorite "why bother" is around making the bed. I've had this argument with every person I've lived with for decades now, from my mom and dad, to my college roommate, to my wife. For the longest time, I simply couldn't see the point to making the bed! I go to sleep at night, get up in the morning, and then will go to sleep at night again ... so why do I need to make the sheets neat and tidy for a few hours in between? Their answers, invariably, were "because it's the right thing to do," and I simply didn't buy it. It wasn't until I saw a more personally meaningful benefit that I believed in the importance of making the bed.

So what does my opinion on making the bed have to do with requirements? Well, probably not much ... but hopefully it'll provide a good parallel with a common frustration on requirements projects. It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day challenges (aka frustrations) of software development efforts, and when you're caught that way, it's easy to have those challenges carry over into your perspective on your own work. At home, you may feel like you're already doing too much housework and making the bed is just one more chore you're too tired to do. At work, you may feel like your deliverables don't matter, or like there's nothing you can do to have a positive impact on the project, or like ... well ... why bother?

If you've been involved with requirements engineering for a while now, this may sound like an all-too-familiar scenario. I know that I've found myself feeling this way more often than I'd like over the years. What I've discovered, though, is that these "why bother" moments are opportunities for me to learn and, more importantly, make a positive impact on my project.

Chances are that if you're feeling frustrated, others on the project are too. If you can recognize the challenge, you can use your requirements role to help shake the entire project out of its slump. Play games in your next requirements workshop. Bring cookies to a document review "just because you think everybody deserves a cookie." Open a meeting by saying that you don't see any reason to keep creating requirements and see what the reaction is (OK, maybe this one isn't the BEST idea!). By shaking yourself out of the "why bother" mindset, you make a difference to the other people on your project, and hopefully you can also see how your work makes a difference to those people and the overall project itself.

One simple change of perspective can impact countless numbers of people - and that's why we bother.

(Editorial Note: I now DO make the bed, and I do it because it's important to my wife, it's what I want my son to learn to do, AND it's the right thing to do!)