by Dwayne Phillips Borrowing from The Software Crisis of the 1990s, I declare The AI Crisis. A recent report from MIT claims that 95% of AI projects attempted by well-meaning folks fail. Gosh. That is a pretty high percentage. I remember the software crisis of the late 1980s and all through the 1990s. Reports like […]
Entries Tagged as 'Requirements'
The AI Crisis
September 11th, 2025 · No Comments
Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Computing · Design · History · Requirements · Software · Systems · Technology
AI, Education, Teaching, and Learning
August 4th, 2025 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips AI has upended large parts of the education system. What to do? Back to basics. Decide what is important to learn and teach that. Teachers give an assignment. Students use one of these chattering bots to write the answer. Task done. No learning, but the task is done so move on. This […]
Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Computing · Education · Learning · Programming · Requirements · Teaching · Technology
Punishment Assessment
May 19th, 2025 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips A part of or a separate activity is the punishment assessment. What is the result of not following the rules? Years ago, I supervised a person who always asked the question, “And what happens to me if I don’t do this?” He wasn’t avoiding work; he was assessing rules and regulations to […]
Tags: Accountability · Adults · Alternatives · Choose · Questions · Requirements · Risk
Gap Analysis: Beware
February 6th, 2025 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Analyzing the gap between what we have and what we need is a good practice. Beware, however, that it doesn’t stop people from thinking and focus them on the same old thing. “Gap analysis is a systematic method used to identify the differences between an organization’s current state and its desired future […]
Tags: Analysis · General Systems Thinking · Requirements · Research · Resources · Systems · Thinking
Answer the Big Questions, Please
October 17th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips This is what the people who steer the money want from AI or anything else. We don’t want AI to do the dishes and the laundry. Well, most of us want these things, but the people who steer the money, i.e., the CEO folks, want answers to their big questions. Big questions […]
Tags: Artificial Intelligence · Data Science · Decide · Questions · Requirements · Systems
A Thousand Assistants
September 16th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips This is a tried and true method of gathering requirements and specifying systems. Imagine you had a thousand assistants. There are various methods of gathering requirements and specifying systems. A basic one is to imagine a thousands assistants awaiting your request. If you had a thousand assistants, what would you have them […]
Tags: Analysis · Design · General Systems Thinking · Requirements · Simple · Systems
Choosing the Problem
July 11th, 2024 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips For those who have the resources to choose the problems for those who can solve them, please, choose wisely. Smart scientists, engineers, and problem solvers abound. Well, maybe not abound, but given the population of the earth, there are millions of these folks. What problems are they trying to solve? Rocket engines? […]
Tags: Choose · Problems · Requirements · Resources · Solutions
No More and No Less
July 20th, 2023 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips When we build systems, build them to do and have no more and no less than we intend. A few pseudo definitions: The users says, “I want a system that does this and that is and like this and that.” The builders say among themselves, “We can do those things and a […]
Tags: Accountability · Design · Engineering · Requirements · Systems
What Question are We Answering?
December 26th, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips Find the right question. The answer will direct efforts. That is pretty basic, but it seems to work. The purpose of this blog post is… Well, let me struggle with the rest of that sentence. In my struggles, let me find the right question. How about, “Why would anyone read this?” or […]
Tags: Analysis · Design · Engineering · Questions · Requirements
Verification and Validation
December 15th, 2022 · No Comments
by Dwayne Phillips This is yet another fundamental to providing systems that delight users. Have we validated that we verified before vacation? Or is it the other way around? There was a time when verification and validation were so commonly used that we called it “V&V.” Then we wanted independent persons to perform V&V so […]
Tags: Customer · General Systems Thinking · Requirements · Systems · Testing · User