Generating shared understanding in a project using Impact and Example Mapping (#RSAA25)

A lot of software projects stumble in their very first steps. A team is assembled, a plan is laid out and much furious activity ensues. But no one can figure out exactly what it is that they should be building. There’s a lot of conversations and a lot of cycles are wasted trying to figure out exactly what the subject matter experts want when they use certain terms. Eventually the developers commit code to the repo and the first software drops and everyone is left with a vague feeling of disappointment when it doesn’t hit the mark. If the team is lucky, they have enough time to course correct and come up with a usable software product, albeit lacking some features. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Agile software development has matured and a number of disciplined techniques have evolved to sharpen the fuzzy front-end of software development. These tools enable software engineers to turn project goals into software features and to use examples to translate domain expert language into specific rules that govern software behaviour. An introduction to Impact Mapping - a method to allow you to link well defined project goals to user stories and software features An introduction to Example Mapping - a technique which utilises specification-by-example to derive software rules from subject matter examples An appreciation of how these techniques sharpen the fuzzy front-end of software development and pave the way for project success