Requirement Definition – Are we Done Yet? – Part 4

Criterion 4 : Benefit

Regardless of what you do to validate the requirements phase, you still have those “hand-wringers” that refuse to sign-off for fear you are missing some really important requirements. You think you have all the requirements, the majority of the stakeholders think that you have all the requirements, and you, and probably everybody else, secretly want a single one indicator that screams that you have all the requirements and are ready to baseline and start designing. Unfortunately, no such indicator exists. If you are in a quandary about whether you are done with requirements or not ask yourself this question…

What will cost less – potential downstream changes because I forgot some requirements or the time, schedule and resource investment required to make sure that I have defined every possible requirement?

A word of caution; there are people who are on the other side of the spectrum from the hand-wringers…I call these people the Schedule Mongers. Schedule Mongers are those who insist on starting the next phase of a project irrespective of the status of the current phase because “see it’s on the schedule and if it’s on the schedule, we haveto start!!” When assessing the readiness to move to Design, the Schedule Monger does not necessarily care if the requirements are done and is oblivious to, or in denial of, the fact that starting without a good set of requirements will definitely cause a slip to the product delivery, add costs, and probably result in unsatisfied customers. Beware! The Schedule Monger and know that the question you ask about the risk (cost) of proceeding, or not, is just as applicable when dealing with the Schedule Monger as it is with the hand-wringer.