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Feature List Template

Tue, 12/12/2006 - 15:46 — tonys

We are currently moving towards Feature Driven Development and I am looking for templates for a Feature List. Is there a template someone can provide me? Is there a Feature List Matrix that I can use?

‹ Summary level use cases and features From FDDi: more information on "Program" and "Aspect"? ›

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Wed, 12/13/2006 - 05:13 — Jeff De Luca
Jeff De Luca's picture

Explain?

Hi tonys,

I'm not sure what you mean? A features list is simply a categorised list of features. Features are just sentences. There is a naming template for features - but I don't think that's what you mean. Do you mean lke a document or spreadsheet template or something like that?

Also, can you explain what you mean by a feature list matrix please?

Jeff

Wed, 12/13/2006 - 15:15 — tonys

A document or spreadsheet

A document or spreadsheet would be great. We are moving towards this but we haven't received any formal training so I am looking for templates. I guess when I see the word list, I naturally think of a table.

Fri, 12/15/2006 - 02:19 — heptaman
heptaman's picture

FDD: more than templates

tonys,

I strongly recommend that you buy the book "The Practical Guide to Feature Driven Development". There are many templates for you to start with. But the book is worth the reading by itself!

A fair warning: there is much more to FDD than templates! It demands a new agile mindset!

Start doing it, manually, to grasp the main concepts. Then, as time goes by, you may want the help from a FDD KMS (Knowledge Management System), to automate some things, like the Parking Lot Chart.

Also, if possible, get some training. Where in the world are you? :)

Cheers,

Adail Muniz Retamal
www.heptagon.com.br

Fri, 12/15/2006 - 15:16 — Jeff De Luca
Jeff De Luca's picture

Ok, I understand what you

Ok, I understand what you mean now. I don't have anything for you. This has been done in countless different ways - web forms, standalone apps, web apps, spreadsheets, rich text formatted documents...

The FBS is a categorised list. There are three categories - Subject Area, Business Activity, Feature. There can be many instances of each. There are many different ways to present such a tree of data. For example, indented like a tree view or an outline view, or as stacked tables like the FDD plan view. I can't really tell you which presentation might work best for you. I do recommend FDD's plan view but that is not exclusive to any other presentations of the features list (FBS).

There is no real structure to the name of a Subject Area or Business Activity (although there are some suggested naming templates) but there is structure to the name of a feature.

An interesting consideration is how to capture and present that structure (if at all).

i.e. the feature naming template is <action> <result> <object>

We say that when features are displayed as sentences we italicise the result token to keep the naming template imprinted.

So, do you only do this as a presentation thing. e.g.

calculate <i>the total of</i> a sale

Or should there be the semantics. e.g.

<action>calculate</action><result>the total of</result><object>a sale</object>

or <feature><action>calculate</action><result>the total of</result><object>a sale</object></feature>

or <feature>calculate<result>the total of</result>a sale</feature>

where the result tag is styled by CSS to italic.

The rest of the presentation structure is open - as I said above. If capturing the feature structure you might use columns - you might not.

For what its worth, generally I don't present the feature structure. I always display a feature itself as a sentence but with the result token italicised.