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for an article: what do you wish the CIO understood?

 
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Howdy, folks. As some of you know, I have a new job. I'm now senior online editor at CIO.com (and more invisibly at CSOonline.com), where I can get into trouble in my very own blog (http://blogs.cio.com/blog/37). I am, of course, still paying a lot of editorial attention to the software development community. It's just that now I have the ear of the boss.

Among the things that CIOs most desperately want to know -- really, they say this -- is what their development staff thinks, but doesn't SAY. At least, the developer won't say it directly to the CIO or other top management. So I'm starting a series of articles about "what CIOs really need to know about..." which will cover various topics. The first one is about software requirements.

My question to you is a very simple one. If you could get your CIO to understand one thing, just ONE THING about software requirements, what would it be?

And then, the obvious follow-up: why did you pick that? War stories to illustrate your point would be great.

You can touch on anything to do with the software requirements process; I'm game for whatever you give me.

Ideally I would quote you by name and company and location ("Esther Schindler is a senior developer at the Groovy Corporation in Scottsdale Arizona") but as long as you give me some kind of context I'm willing to work without one. That is, I do need some identifying characteristics to give the article credibility ("Esther works at a large finance company in the Southwest") but I don't want you to lose your job when the CIO realizes that the developer quoted works for *her*! <grin> So please be sure to let me know how to refer to you in the article.

I'll be sure to stop by here (as I expect others want to participate in the conversation), but it'd be great if you could send me a private message. I don't want to miss any responses. Reply privately if that's easier, too.

I plan to work on this during the holiday and to collect responses over the next week or so. I'm hoping to publish the article on CIO.com by mid-January at the latest.

So: what clue would you like your CIO to get? about software requirements, that is?

Esther Schindler
senior online editor
CXO Media
 
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I HAVE A FAMILY and it is not my job!

Eric
 
Esther Schindler
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Originally posted by Eric Pascarello:
I HAVE A FAMILY and it is not my job!



Er, could you provide a little more background?

I can make an intelligent guess, but the single sentence isn't much to go on.
 
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Originally posted by Esther Schindler:


Er, could you provide a little more background?

I can make an intelligent guess, but the single sentence isn't much to go on.



his CIO may not need more than one sentence, or be unable to interpret more than one sentence at a time
 
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Originally posted by Jeroen T Wenting:
his CIO may not need more than one sentence, or be unable to interpret more than one sentence at a time



Heh. That might be true, but I'm writing this for the CIOs who want to get a clue. Let's give them as much information as we can, shall we, to help them make good decisions!

And do keep it in the scope of software requirements. I'm sure that there are a lot of things you might say to your CIO (or a past CIO) if you didn't fear for the consequences... but I'm taking this one topic at a time. :-)
 
Esther Schindler
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This article has posted! Thanks to everybody here who contributed.

Getting Clueful: Five Things CIOs Should Know About Software Requirements

Software requirements documentation was supposed to itemize everything that the application required. But the project was late, the users were unhappy, and the budget spun out of control. Why? Just ask the developers.

http://www.cio.com/advice_opinion/development/five_things_it_managers_should_know_about_software_requirements.html?CID=29903
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