Why the heck are developers always complaining that there are gaps in requirements?
Sorry this is more of a venting post. I started of as product owner and know the system only tor 6 months But there are always gaps in requirements There are several pre PI meetings conducted by my very resourceful PM in which no developer would raise anything I am a PO and I run the sprint refinement where people blast saying there are gaps in the requirements I am so disheartened that all the effort that goes in to it is ruined most of the time I don’t even want to blame the tech team They probably have a point But why dont they just bring it during the start of the requirement gathering itself #ventoutpost
You need to first define for us what you mean by "gaps in the requirements". Requirements for the running sprint must be crystal clear.
I had exactly the same experience. The solution to this is, you should tag along with 1-2 SDEs from the beginning of ideation. They should be your partners in reviewing the requirements to mock-ups and designs. So that they understand the customer needs from the get go. Unfortunately what ends up happening is that we PMs don’t get assigned a dedicated SDE for a project, we present our findings in front of the team and each one has an opinion. Such a wrong way to go about building products. Discussions should happen before starting a project and then it should just be assigned to a PM and a SDE resource to take it forward.
While requirements must be clear, there must also be an embrace of rework. Otherwise scrap agile development and go back 1950s project management
Claiming issues with requirements is a defense mechanism for software developers. If they are behind schedule, or are producing garbage, then they can’t admit that they are a shit developer. Must be “garbage in, garbage out”. Complaining about missing external dependencies (input data, access to systems, complete training data, etc) is another example of this in effect. No amount of better process, improved stakeholders feedback, more rigorous requirements, etc will resolve this problem. The only thing that fixes it is creating a culture where failure is accepted/celebrated and transparency and collaboration are the norm.
This ^