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back to article Getting your business software requirements right

Why do few developers get requirements definition right? Understanding what end-users want from a software project at the outset is crucial if projects are to remain on track. Yet a combination of poorly understood processes and inadequate tools often compromises this important phase. The US-based research firm Standish Group’ …

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  1. Scott Thomson

    Interesting white paper but

    it does really just point out the obvious facts that any systems or software engineer have figured out for themselves. Another bit of software to capture requirements won't make much difference given that the vast majority of schedule slip issues are introduced by the customer themselves and the poor management of the changes by team leads.

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  2. LiteWeight72
    FAIL

    It's 2011, not 1970...Upfront requirements gathering is dead

    Winston Royce wrote a white paper in 1970 on how to develop large systems, in which he coined the term waterfall. Yet even in his 1970, paper, he was clear that it's impossible to get the requirements right first time and that only traversing the waterfall once is stupid.

    Moving on 30 years, we had the start of Agile software development take off around the year 2000. Agile methodologies (of which there are many), all recommend limited upfront analysis (and design). Instead they prefer Continuous Analysis, Design, Testing, Coding, through out the project life time.

    Today, eleven years later, Agile has proven itself. More and more companies/teams spread across every industrial section use agile techniques and methodologies.

    It's time to stop banging the drum of upfront analysis.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wot heresy

    Everyone knows that you start coding first and then badger your customer in the agile way to make them accept what you cobbled together.

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  4. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    @"Why do few developers get requirements definition right?"

    ... lessons on analysis and Design are taught in a lot of dry university lectures or highly detailed documentation. Which most development students tend to dislike and skip over. It lacks all the glory of short term success, bells and whistles.

    * Many of the developers out there today have never been near any of it.

    * Few and far between are the programmers who understand the one central nugget of gold amidst the blather. **Extensions happen. Design it to be stable even when demands change**

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