Practice: Shared Vision |  |
This practice supports defining and communicating an overall vision for the project.
Relationships
Content References | How to Adopt the Shared Vision Practice Vision Glossary Develop Technical Vision Requirements Gathering Techniques Effective Requirement Reviews
Purpose
Establishing and maintaining a shared vision of the problem being solved (stakeholder needs) and the high-level properties of the proposed product (product features) reduces the risk associated with stakeholder and market acceptance by aligning expectations. Unfortunately, misunderstandings and miscommunication about the product strategy often lead the development team to develop a system that fails to meet stakeholders' needs and vision. It is essential that the development team and stakeholders share the same expectations. The product Vision identifies the stakeholders, provides a common understanding of the problem being addressed, captures the high-level stakeholder needs and project constraints, and provides the background and context for requirements that will be detailed later. A shared vision serves as input for communicating the fundamental "what and why" for the project, and provides a strategy against which all future decisions must be validated. Establishing and maintaining a shared vision is also essential for planning and monitoring the scope of the development effort. The product Vision establishes the long-term vision for the product, a vision that typically spans several releases, and provides the information required for cost-benefit analysis and prioritization of work.
How to read this practice
The best way to read this practice is to first familiarize yourself with its overall structure: what it is in it and how it is organized. Review the template for the Vision to understand the information it captures. Then review the task Develop Technical Vision to see the steps describing "what" needs to be performed to capture this information. Associated guidelines provide more detailed information on "how" to perform the task. Finally, the associated checklist provides a means to verify that you have captured all of the required information. For step-by-step instructions on how to adopt this practice, see How to Adopt the Shared Vision Practice.
Additional Information
For more information on the shared vision practice, see the following:
A. Hickey, A. Davis Elicitation Technique Selection: How Do the Experts Do It?, International Conference on Requirements Engineering (RE03), Los Alamitos, California: IEEE Computer Society Press, Sep. 2003
| Descriptions of elicitation techniques that will help define the vision.
Ivy Hooks, Lou Wheatcraft Scope - Magic, Compliance Automation Inc., 2001. http://www.complianceautomation.com/papers/scope_magic.pdf. (Get Adobe Reader)
| Excellent whitepaper on defining and communicating the scope and constraints for a product.
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