Ruud Cox, Improve Quality Services
Before we are able to define the requirements of a product we need to identify factors that should benefit from its values and we need to identify the threats to these values. Whenever we’re trying to figure out what a product should be in relation to its environment, we say we’re trying to understand its context.
Product Ecology is a method to identify all the factors that have meaningful relationships to the product. Each factor as well as its relationships to the product as well as the product itself should be studied to an extent that the right level of information is gathered which is needed to define the requirements.
There is a common notion that information is best represented by text and maybe some diagrams. But what if we would start mapping our mental models into visual models and use these models while we are trying to make sense of the product and its context? Wouldn’t it be more effective if visual modeling was an integral part of solving a problem?
The purpose of this presentation is to describe and explain the Product Ecology method. We will also learn how heuristics and visualization techniques can be used to resolve this context analysis problem. Examples from a real project will be used during this presentation to illustrate the points being made.
Takeaways:
- Product Ecology as a requirements elicitation technique
- How the context of a product can be modeled as a diagram
- Inspiration through many examples given
Ruud Cox, 2017 Invited Speaker, Abstract, Paper, Slides, Video
