by Suzanne Robertson and James Robertson

This is the fourth article in a series that explains the thinking behind the Volere requirements techniques. Subsequent articles will explore various aspects of applying these techniques in your environment.

The previous articles in this series have focused on different views and levels of requirements and the ability to be able to trace between them. Before going further with this theme it is useful to stand back and consider the nature of Requirements-related work.

Requirements discovery and communication is an activity that straddles the boundary between the sociological side of system development, and the technological side. On one hand we have people, with all their vagaries, fallibilities, opinions, inspirations, attitudes, experiences, similarities and differences. On the other we have a variety of technology that demands a precise specification if designers and developers are to use it to produce the best possible solution for the client.