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New Post 5/21/2010 8:19 AM
User is offline piyush
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Features? What the heck are they? 

Hi,

Although I have a very good grasp of partnering with both the business and technology groups to deliver a technology product that aligns well to the business need, till date, I'm at a loss understanding features.

Here is a sample scenario and my problem when it comes to eliciting features for a given need:

Company A has a manual process by which they want to automate. The business analyst jumps in, understands the business vision, problem, motivation, and product champions and begins his analysis by understanding the goals of the intended system by either using a user stories or use case approach. Once the analyst distills out the user requirements, the analyst translates those requirements to functional requirements which eventually are designed, developed, tested, and delivered to the customer.

Now, I didn't mention a single statement about designing a product based on a set of features. Although I understand the theory behind how a feature traces up to a business requirement and down to a user requirement, how do I go about actually figuring out 'what the feature is'? I'm so lost.

Lets take a really simple realistic example:

Business Problem: Company A needs to automate the creation of executive reports

High Level Use Cases: "View Executive Report", "View Detailed Company Reports", "Print Reports"

I'll stop here. Now, what would the feature set of this example be? How would I go about eliciting the features for this product? 'When' do we determine the features of the product? Who do we speak to to elicit the feature of the product? Are features of the product the same as the business requirements?

Any help is sincerely appreciated. If you can give me a real example and/or point me to a place that REALLY explains how to determine the features of a product and the relationship of the feature to the business, user, and functional requirements, that'd be very useful! Thanks a lot.

 

 
New Post 6/2/2010 1:42 AM
User is offline Adrian M.
765 posts
3rd Level Poster




Re: Features? What the heck are they? 
Modified By Adrian M.  on 6/2/2010 3:54:36 AM)

 piyushdabomb wrote

... 

I'm at a loss understanding features...

How would I go about eliciting the features for this product? ... 

'When' do we determine the features of the product? 

Who do we speak to to elicit the feature of the product? 

Are features of the product the same as the business requirements? ...

Great questions!

I know it's not fair but, before I give you my two cents, I'm going to answer your questions with another question:

"Who cares?"

In general, most business analysts don't need to be concerned with features.  As long as the work of the analyst produces value to the business stakeholders by solving their problems and by addressing their business needs - that's what matters most!

The best way to describe features that I've seen is as follows: "If you were to put your software product in a box for retail sales, the features are the capabilities of your application which you'll list on the box or in other marketing materials."

In my opinion, as far as software applications are concerned, "features" were invented by marketing.  So if you want to discover the "features" of your application, tell your marketing department what your software can do and they'll tell you the features.  ;-)

Features tend to be very high level as opposed to business requirements which tend to be more detailed.  You can also look at a feature as a group of related business requirements which accomplish something of value to the potential buyer or user.

Having said that, there is no science or methodology for features - that I know of - and they have no value for the business analyst beyond helping the marketers to develop them.

Hope this helps!

- Adrian


Adrian Marchis
Business Analyst Community Blog - Post your thoughts!
 
New Post 6/9/2010 7:30 AM
User is offline piyush
2 posts
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Re: Features? What the heck are they? 

Adrian,

Thanks for your input. Microsoft builds their products by using a feature-centric approach. When they talk about 'design', they discuss features often.

Additionally, the 'Rational Unified Process' also discusses the inclusion of features for a software product in the Vision document. Why wouldn't someone care if this topic is included in both documentation and interview processes?

I like the idea of viewing a feature encompassing a set of business requirements. Fair. Thanks.

 
New Post 6/17/2010 12:49 PM
User is offline Anthony Chen
63 posts
8th Level Poster


Re: Features? What the heck are they? 

 piyushdabomb wrote

Adrian,

Thanks for your input. Microsoft builds their products by using a feature-centric approach. When they talk about 'design', they discuss features often.

Additionally, the 'Rational Unified Process' also discusses the inclusion of features for a software product in the Vision document. Why wouldn't someone care if this topic is included in both documentation and interview processes?

I like the idea of viewing a feature encompassing a set of business requirements. Fair. Thanks.

 

We have had this discussion internally extensively. The issue with the term feature is that it is not consistently defined and there is not general industry agreement as to what constitutes a feature. There are different types of features when you consider products. Sometimes features are non-functional requirements (i.e. 1 GB ram, supports EDI 2.0, etc). Sometimes features are the titles of high level use cases (view and print executive reports faster than ever!).

We consider them high level placeholders for concepts that the users kind of know they want but maybe havent fleshed out the details of. They typically operate as buckets of more detailed functional requirements and definitely act as titles of use cases.

I looked through our blog to see if I could find a specific article that discusses this because Im pretty sure there is, however I couldnt find it. Our blog is here http://requirements.seilevel.com/blog 

 
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