I do not know (except for one person possibly) any of the people
involved with the "merge" of the GUIDE to SHARE requirements. I am
going on what seems to be what happened to the GUIDE requirements.
The consensus seems to be that the actual merge took place during the
GUIDE.
There was a group that decided what was a dup and what was "unnesc" .
Only IBM types have write access to the database
I did not hear from anyone of the few people who were involved, how
decisions were made as to dup, and unnesc.
According to several people it was an afternoon project.
*MY* sense (I was not there so this is a guess) that the people SHARE
/GUIDE /IBM was that it was a less than thorough project. One time we
reviewed JUST the GUIDE requirements and it took approximately 15
hours. I vaguely remember this was in 1990 (but it could have been
earlier by a few years). We really cleaned up the database, IMO.
So I would suggest that you review any requirements that you wrote for
GUIDE and request to see if they are still in the database and if not
resubmit them.
Some of the requirements might be dups now, so ask the requirements
person to check them out. Re-write any and resubmit them and keep
copies and keep the requirements person "busy" do not drop anything.
They (IBM) might understand that requirements are important.
I've sat back quietly and watched these SHARE/GUIDE requirements threads
take some veiled and not so veiled shots at SHARE. I can no longer sit back
and let these anti-SHARE innuendos go unchallenged. As one who was
intimately involved with both the ISPF and Storage Management efforts to
merge the GUIDE requirements, let me set the record straight.
For Storage Management, we met at SHARE a few years ago to review all the
outstanding requirements in the SHARE database, as well as the outstanding
GUIDE requirements we were aware of. We wanted to clear the refuse out of
the database so we could give IBM a good idea of the directions to take.
Contrary to the innuendo above, this effort took the better part of two
days, a Friday night and Saturday before SHARE. It was a VERY THOROUGH
effort. Total time expended was about 10-12 hours, I can't remember
exactly, during which we reviewed literally hundreds of requirements. Most
of the GUIDE requirements (and some of the SHARE requirements) were retired
for one of four reasons:
1. The requirement was available in a current release of DFSMS.
2. The requirement was a duplicate of an existing IBM or SHARE requirement.
3. The requirement was so poorly written as to be unintelligible (we had a
surprisingly high number of these from both GUIDE and SHARE).
4. The requirement was so old that no one understood the problem it was
trying to address (some requirements had 1970's and 1980's dates on them).
I can assure you that no valid requirement was retired. All valid storage
requirements were resubmitted to IBM, or for some of the older ones,
re-drawn as a SHARE requirement for re-voting. I do not have the stats for
the re-votes.
For ISPF, we did the same work. All valid ISPF requirements we resubmitted
to IBM or re-voted. The idea that we at SHARE either ignored or simply
deleted the GUIDE requirements out of hand is at best, misinformed, and at
worst, a deliberate attempt to malign SHARE and those of us within SHARE
that work so tirelessly on requirements.
I joined SHARE in February of 1999 just in time to go to San Francisco. I
submitted a number of SHARE requirements that week, but like many first-time
submitters, I concentrated more on the solution than defining the problem.
Many of my early requirements were shot down and did not score well. Over
time I learned to state the requirement and the business case. I learned
that the best way to get a requirement accepted is to not only tell IBM why
you want it, tell IBM why IBM wants it. IBM has a funny way of implementing
requirements that further its business objectives (surprise), not
necessarily yours (surprise, surprise). After that first SHARE, I gained a
rep as the "human requirements machine". Between DFSMS, ISPF, MVS, REXX,
and a few others, I submitted well over 100 requirements in the space of
about 3-4 years. If you want to see the results of that work, look at the
"What's new" in ISPF and RMM for z/OS V1R2, V1R3, V1R4, V1R5, V1R6, and
V1R7. Many of the requirements I submitted over the past 5 years have been
implemented by IBM. Mike Wood and I always laugh when Mike puts together
the "What's New in RMM" session. About 75% of the "What's New in RMM"
session for the past 4 or 5 z/OS releases came from requirements I submitted
for RMM (probably over 50, I honestly lost count).
Get to the point, Conley. OK, here it is. THE SHARE REQUIREMENTS PROCESS
WORKS, AND IF YOU WANT TO GET IBM TO DO SOMETHING, GET ONBOARD WITH SHARE
REQUIREMENTS!!! People that complain about the SHARE requirements process
not working are either unaware of the process or deliberately misleading
you. When you ask them, it turns out that they haven't even tried it, or
are relying on information that is years out of date. Instead of asking the
complainers, ask me, Ed Jaffe, Bob Shannon, John Laubenheimer, Michael
Friske, Jim Narramore, Bill Smith, Duane Reaugh, Janet Sun, Lynette Pope,
Sam Knutson, Sylvia Gorman, Monique and Steve Conway, Chris Craddock, and
dozens of others I don't have the space for, whether the SHARE requirements
process works. If you want to get started, join SHARE (or if already a
member), send a note to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and request a userid and password
for the requirements database. I will be posting further on how to use the
requirements database in the coming days. I will also have a call to arms
going out for Rexx, so please be on the lookout for that.
/rant, I'm tired.
Regards,
Tom Conley
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