Much of my experience designing, developing and enhancing software over the last 30+ years has involved the process called “Requirements Gathering” by the software industry. From the point of view of the customer, company or team requesting a new thing, whether it’s a brand new product, a new feature on an existing product or a enhancement to something, the group has “wishes and dreams”, not specific requirements, typically. They want to solve a problem and they may think they know how, heck, they may even actually know how to solve this problem from the use case perspective. It is our job to do two things here; One, understand the desired end result of the the change and Two, understand what will satisfy that need when delivered.
Think of it this way, using the movie Grease as an example. In the movie, our boys of the T-Birds want a hot rod. There is a wonderful dance sequence where they express the requirements in the form of a fantastically vehicle, a fully imagined prototype in their collective minds.
The work commences and various challenges are over come, related to budget, parts availability, time and skill (which is considerable!) When the hot rod Greased Lightning is rolled out it looks nothing at all like the prototype design. IMHO it looks better and more importantly it accomplished the real, underlying desired result; An envy worthy car that can win the big race!
Use all your skills to prepare the customer for the fact that the process of requirements gathering and the subsequent changes that are made during the course of development are part of the path to producing the best solution possible within the limits of technology, budget, time and talent. Rest assured that if you don’t surprise them at delivery time, they will be more than happy with the results.
