Requirements, Features, and Priorities
Every software solution is brought into existence by the implementation of a succession of features and requirements. Each solution has its own unique set of features and requirements, but something that varies from one development team to another is how those features and requirements are identified and documented and tracked through the development process. Some developers understand the requirements better than others. Some teams acquire a lot of specific details at the beginning while others wait to acquire details until the specific features enter the coding phase. Some teams talk to end users and customers to get a list of features, other teams make educated guesses about what end users want. Some teams rarely work with product owners to clarify features under development while on other teams a product owner works with the developers all day long every day to clarify requirements. Furthermore, teams use different methods to establish the priority, or sequence, in which features and requirements are implemented. For some teams, the product owner dictates the sequence of features, but for others that is totally controlled by the development team, and of course in many cases the priority is determined jointly by the groups.
Beyond identifying and prioritizing requirements and features, development teams use different approaches to track the progress of development and also to keep track of when features are provided to customers or end users. Some software development teams provide little progress information other than perhaps letting the customer know when the feature is available; while others provide daily visualization of the status of the feature and thorough records of when it was delivered. As with most every element, the correct implementation depends upon many factors in the software development environment. While it may sound like every team should provide a current status of features under development, such actions could produce waste if no one desires to consume that information regularly.