Scott,

Thanks for the response and for the links you provided. They were very useful.

However, while methodologies such as RUP may have over-emphasized on "big requirements upfront" as a requirements development approach, is it not possible that Agile may also be over-emphasizing on "less and less requirements documentations"? In an environment where requirements are transiently documented on whiteboards, flip charts, etc., what happens if there is a need to go back to refer to the particular requirement, in the event of a conflict between stakeholders and developers, but then the "throw-away" documentation has been discarded?

In your experience how real is this scenario, and how does one go about resolving a misunderstanding around a requirement that does not have a permanent document and, therefore, there is no trace of it ever being agreed upon between stakeholders and developers? How important then is the use of a requirements traceability matrix in an Agile environment?

Again, thanks for explaining Agile to some of us.