5.3.3 Requirements Mythology: Shattering Myths About Requirements and the Management Thereof
James Nello Martin Jr. · INCOSE International Symposium · 1995
Abstract Requirements cannot be managed well if the true nature of these requirements is not understood. There are some misperceptions about requirements that lead to improper application of requirements practices and principles. For example, some believe that “all requirements must be verifiable” before they can be declared to be “good” requirements. If this were true, then we would have to ignore the “non‐good” requirements we often get from our customer and potential system users who are not usually literate enough in “requirements engineering” to give us verifiable requirements per se. In fact, the customer usually can tell you if a requirement is met “when they see it.” A more accurate statement is that all specified requirements must be verifiable. This is not an insignificant distinction. This example illustrates the danger of believing in certain “requirements myths”. Like all mythology, each particular myth has a degree of truth in it. It is this element of truth that encourages the persistence of these myths. It would be better to apply these truths to a better understanding of requirements management principles and application of its practices. This paper describes a dozen common myths about requirements. Each myth is examined to determine the true and the false elements and to identify the traps to avoid when performing requirements engineering tasks.