MUST vs. SHOULD vs. COULD
Whether I'm dealing with software requirements, or I'm prioritizing my personal TO Dos, I think in terms of MUST, SHOULD, COULD. It's simpple but effective.
Here's an example of some scenarios and usage:
- getting a quick handle on my day - what MUST I do today? what SHOULD I do? What COULD I do?
- prioritizing my personal backlog - what MUST I do today? what MUST I do this week? What should I do? What could I do?
- focusing my teams - what MUST we release this week? What SHOULD we release this week? what COULD we release this week?
- brainstorming sessions - what COULD we do? What SHOULD we do? what MUST we do?
- determining an incremental release - what are the MUSTs for this software release? What are the SHOULDs? What are the COULDs?
- helping a customer identify their security objectives - What security constraints MUST be met for this software?
- helping a customer identify their performance objectives - what performance constraints MUST be met for this software?
It's easy to get lost among SHOULDs and COULDs. I find factoring MUSTs from the SHOULDs and COULDs helps get clarity around immediate action.
