Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

I review a requirements-management scheme that indicates no requirements management.

I once worked in an organization that built systems. Everyone worked very hard and very long hours. There was one problem:

We never delivered a single system

Why not? The problem was with managing requirements. Each month we held a requirements meeting. Someone would state a requirement for a new system. That new system was more important than any system ever requested. Hence, work on all other systems must cease, and all resources must go towards the new requirement.

This was a simple scheme:

The last requirement stated was to be implemented first.

Ah, nothing ever finished. The entire situation was a failure to manage the requirements. No one wanted to decide what requirement was truly the most important and hence should be implemented first. Decisions implied thought and responsibility. Yikes. We didn’t want any of that.

People were given awards for stating important requirements. People were given awards for working hard on building systems. No one ever delivered anything; no one ever accomplished anything. Appearance of effort and intention was everything.