Facilitated Application Specification Techniques

Introduction to Facilitated Application Specification Techniques (FAST)

While working simultaneously the customer and the software engineer feel that they are working separately with each other and they are us and them in place of awe. In  this case, there will be   much  formal work, paper work, documents and question and answer  sessions misunderstandings and unsuccessful working  relationship. So they have to set their minds that they are working together as single team members. And will complete this whole work simultaneously. So they must have the proper discussions in spite of this Q& A session and they should think it as their own work.

Now such type of team oriented approach should be followed. A team should be established during early stages of analysis and specification. This approach  is also called  as the facilitated application specification technique (FAST) , which  encourages  the  creation of a joint team of customers and developers who work together t indentify  the  problem propose elements of the solution  negotiate different approaches and  specify  a preliminary set of solution requirements.

FAST is now becoming a dominating approach in the market. If follows the team oriented approach and set the good and proper discussion type communications. So by using such approach the communication between them can be improved very much which has the direct affect on the whole sole software.

Many different approaches to FAST have been proposed like joint application development (JDA), which was developed by IBM and the METHOD, which was developed by Inc. Falls church, VA. Each approach has some variation with the other approaches, but all follow these basic guidelines.

  • A meeting is conducted at a neutral site and attended by both software engineering analysts and customers.
  • Rules for preparation and participation are established.
  • An agenda is suggested that is formal enough to cover all important point but informal enough to encourage the free flow of ideas.
  • A facilitator (can be a customer a developer or an outsider) is assigned to control the meeting.
  • A definition mechanism (can be work sheets flip charts or wall stickers or chat room) is used where how meeting will be conducted.
  • The goal of this meeting is to identify the problem propose elements of the solution, negotiate different approaches and specify a preliminary set of solution requirement in an atmosphere for the achievement of the goal.

Using these guidelines as base a serried of the steps activities are performed that idea up to the meeting occur during the follow the meeting. These steps are discussed   one by one:

  • In the beginning a formal meeting is conducted between developer and customer, Q&A session is started to have the general idea about the problem, desired solution, customer and benefits.
  • Then, customer and developer both write a separate one or two page. Product request document. This is just like a small report with brief description.
  • Next, step is to set a meeting place, time and date for FAST. Parallel a facilitator and attendees of the FAST (both the development and customer user organization sides) are selected.
  • After that the product request reports are distributed to all the attendees before the meeting starts.
  • Additionally before the meeting each attendee is asked to make a list of three objects or instances:
  • Objects that will be used by the system to perform its functions (Objects of input).
  • Objects that will be produced by the system (objects of output ) and,
  • Objects that will be part of the environment that surrounds the system.

In addition to this each attendee is asked to make another list of service that manipulate or interact with the objects. Finally lists of constraints and performance criterion are also developed.

The attendees are informed that these lists have to be made before the meeting and it should not be exhaustive. In reality, more information would be provided at this stage. But even with additional information, ambiguity would be present, omissions would likely exist, and errors might occur.

  • The FAST team is composed of representatives from marketing software and hardware engineering and manufacturing. An outside facilitator is to be called. Each member of the FAST team produces that lists described previously.
  • As the FAST meeting begins, the followings steps are performed in sequence.
  • Discussion is started with the need and justification for the new product and everyone should agree that the product is justified.
  • After establishing the agreement, each participant presents his lists for discussion. All the lists are either pinned on the walls of the room, or posted on a chat room environment for review prior to the meeting.
  • Ideally, each list entry should be capable of being manipulate separately so that lists can be combined, errors can be deleted, additions can be made and modifications can be done.
  • After making these individual lists, a combined list is created by the group which eliminates the redundant entries, ads that come up during discussions but does not remove any things.
  • Now to begin the meeting the facilitator will coordinate the discussion of the meeting
  • During meeting. Consensus list of each topic area is developed which can be shortened, lengthened or reworded.
  • Now the teams are divided into the sub teams each of the sub team works to develop mini specifications for one more entries on each of the lists. Each mini specification is an elaboration of the work or phrase contained on a list.
  • Each sub team then presents each of its mini specifications to all FAST attendees for discussion. Updating, addition and deletion operations are made in minis specification so that this mini specification will uncover new objects, services, constraints or performance requirements that will be added to the original lists.
  • During the discussion, an issues list is maintained.
  • After the mini specifications are completed, each FAST attendee makes a list of validation criteria for the product and presents it to its team. Then a consensus of validation criteria is created.
  • Finally a complete draft specification, using all inputs from the FAST meeting is assigned to one /more participant.

Such type of team oriented approach provides many benefits improves discussions and communication and makes a strong step toward the development of a specification.

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