RMF 1

Requirements Maturation Flow 1: Collaborating for Shared Understanding

Part of the Requirements Maturation Flow Series

Few teams have the processes and mechanisms in place to get everything they need from their stakeholders before development starts. This often results in delays as a result of bugs and rework, unmet expectations, and stakeholder dissatisfaction.

Some Scrum teams attempt to address this through the use of backlog refinement meetings, which means that these types of discussions are, for most Scrum teams, relegated to one or two short meetings per Sprint. In most cases, this is woefully inadequate, and furthermore, this time is often hidden from leadership and not taken into consideration for capacity planning and estimating completion dates.

Even non-Scrum development teams can struggle with this simply because they lack similar processes and mechanisms to collaborate with stakeholders before development starts.

RMF 1 solves this by transforming understanding into an explicit phase of work. Your team will learn how and when to collaborate with stakeholders until they achieve genuine, confirmed shared understanding of each requirement—before any implementation begins. This habit drastically reduces bugs, rework, and unmet expectations. The practices taught help ensure this collaboration is visible, scheduled, and sustainably prioritized.

What You’ll Gain from RMF 1

RMF 1 introduces a foundational capability most teams have never formalized: ensuring shared understanding before implementation begins.

Through guided practice, your team will:

• Develop a repeatable process for aligning on what a requirement actually means
• Make time for collaboration visible and structured, not ad hoc
• Uncover misunderstandings before they cause rework
• Reduce delays, disputes, and surprises during development
• Build trust across roles by starting with the same expectations

This sets the stage for more advanced practices in the
RMF 2 and
RMF 3 programs.

Program Details

Delivery Format: Training, coaching, and evaluation over 6 weeks (3 two-week sprints).

Participants

The following roles work with software requirements—whether creating them or implementing them—and are expected to apply the RMF 1 practices. Some are required to ensure success, while others are encouraged to join based on their influence over requirements or collaboration processes.

Activities You’ll Complete in RMF 1

These hands-on activities will help your team build the habit of collaborating for shared understanding—without adding unnecessary overhead.

Participation in Meetings

The RMF 1 coach will work with your team for 6 weeks/3 two-week Sprints to help them adopt the RMF 1 practices, during which the coach will:

• Participate in backlog refinement meetings and Sprint Planning events to help them effectively plan for requirements collaboration sessions
• Participate in requirements collaboration sessions with stakeholders/clients for 4 hours per sprint, up to 12 hours to guide everyone to achieving the goals of those sessions and of the RMF 1 program

Capacity Impact

Prerequisites

none

Enablers

none

Footnotes
¹ While most of the work done as a result of RMF 1 is actual work for the team (made visible instead of remaining hidden), there will be a small impact on their capacity for discussion and guidance. As the team becomes proficient, this impact becomes less until it disappears entirely.