{"id":2150,"date":"2020-11-21T19:49:08","date_gmt":"2020-11-21T19:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=2150"},"modified":"2020-11-21T19:49:09","modified_gmt":"2020-11-21T19:49:09","slug":"requirements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/?p=2150","title":{"rendered":"Requirements"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A friend and I were talking about requirements a few days ago. We both worked on the same projects a couple of times over the years and what brought the subject up, was the mention of someone we both worked with that always believed that a requirement was something he wanted<\/em>, not something the needed<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was building systems, a requirement described something that was necessary to satisfy a need. An ongoing problem that we always had was that in building something that someone is going to have to use, the user always wants to have \u201cbells and whistles\u201d added to make his (the user\u2019s) job easier. That\u2019s just human nature. The problem with it, in the real world, is that there\u2019s never enough money to provide everything he \u201cthinks\u201d he needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It reminds me of a story about Kelly\u2026. when she turned 16 years old, she thought she had to have a car. (Everyone thinks they have to have a car when they become old enough to drive.) At the time, she was going to Paul VI High School and her argument was that she needed a car (if I remember correctly, specifically a Mercedes or Audi) to get to school. Paul VI didn\u2019t have any busses, so I suppose she figured she had a pretty good argument.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since Kelly was planning on studying engineering in college, I figured this would be a good time to explain \u201crequirements\u201d to her, since they are very important in the engineering field \u2014 everything is built to a set of requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I explained to Kelly what was wrong of her argument. She had defined her need to get to school as a \u201crequirement.\u201d In fact, that was exactly correct \u2014 her requirement was the need to get from our house to Paul VI. However, Kelly went further, and said she needed a car to get to school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the real problem \u2014 Kelly, like a lot of people, didn\u2019t really have a requirement<\/em>, she had a desirement<\/em>. Her real requirement was to get to school, not to get a car. I could satisfy her requirement<\/em> with a bus ticket, but not her desirement for a car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m sure Kelly wasn\u2019t very happy with my \u201clesson,\u201d but life is full of lessons and I\u2019d like to think it helped her become a better engineer.
\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A friend and I were talking about requirements a few days ago. We both worked on the same projects a couple of times over the years and what brought the subject up, was the mention of someone we both worked … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2151,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2150\/revisions\/2151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/jimmy.ekota.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}