Emergent Requirements | Glossary

Definition: 

Emergent requirements are the features which cannot be identified in advance. User stories that are not defined, but rather emerge during the lifecycle of the software development. These exists on every nontrivial project, they cause problems. An up-front design phase will always be imperfect as it will be impossible for the designer to consider the requirements until they do emerge.

In sequential development process, emergent requirements are handled by adding contingency buffers to the plan and emergent requirement is viewed as a failure of the plan. Agile teams accepts the requirements that will emerge, no matter how carefully team members plan. The first step in dealing with emergent requirements is to acknowledge that we cannot thing of everything well in advance, some requirements will emerge as we develop the system. It should be accepted that we don’t need a perfect requirements document up-front that specifies all details of the system to be developed, rather it is better to specify features with different levels of precision based on when the feature with be developed.  It is not good idea to loc down requirements in a contract, we can’t. We can pretend requirements are locked down and won’t change but some always do. The best contract reflect this or at least acknowledge that change will happen. 

Further Reading:
Book: SUCCEEDING WITH AGILE Software Development Using Scrum by Mike Cohn

Sense of Urgency | Glossary

Definition: 

Urgency is important to a change effort, meaningful organisational change cannot occur without the cooperation of the affected stakeholders. Sense of urgency is an inner drive and desire to get on with the job quickly and get it done fast. This inner drive motivates you to get going and keep going, a feeling much like racing against yourself.

Dr. John Kotter in his book “a sense of urgency” says, sense of urgency is a powerful tool for anyone wanting to win in a turbulent world that will only continue to move faster. Knowing the rules for proper handling a crisis can offer an opportunity to increase needed urgency, an opportunity that cannot be disregarded. We need to perceive a situation or problem is important, requires delebrate action. Teams needs to develop new habits of thinking, perceiving and acting to inculcate this thought of developing sense of urgency. Act in proportion to the urgency, specify the task to reduce confusion and improve judgement, clarify the consequences, use urgency to preserve towards victory despite the pain, recognise who exhibit a sense of urgency.

Further Reading:

Book: A sense of urgency by Dr. John Potter
Book: SUCCEEDING WITH AGILE Software Development Using Scrum by Mike Cohn