Eliciting and understanding requirements from system stakeholders is a difficult process for several reasons:
1. Stakeholders often don’t know what they want from a computer system except in the most general terms; they may find it difficult to articulate what they want the system to do; they may make unrealistic demands because they don’t know what is and isn’t feasible.
2. Stakeholders in a system naturally express requirements in their own terms and with implicit knowledge of their own work. Requirements engineers, without experience in the customer’s domain, may not understand these requirements.
3. Different stakeholders have different requirements and they may express these in different ways. Requirements engineers have to discover all potential sources of requirements and discover commonalities and conflict.
4. Political factors may influence the requirements of a system. Managers may demand specific system requirements because these will allow them to increase their influence in the organization.
5. The economic and business environment in which the analysis takes place is dynamic. It inevitably changes during the analysis process. The importance of particular requirements may change. New requirements may emerge from new stakeholders who were not originally consulted.
1. Stakeholders often don’t know what they want from a computer system except in the most general terms; they may find it difficult to articulate what they want the system to do; they may make unrealistic demands because they don’t know what is and isn’t feasible.
2. Stakeholders in a system naturally express requirements in their own terms and with implicit knowledge of their own work. Requirements engineers, without experience in the customer’s domain, may not understand these requirements.
3. Different stakeholders have different requirements and they may express these in different ways. Requirements engineers have to discover all potential sources of requirements and discover commonalities and conflict.
4. Political factors may influence the requirements of a system. Managers may demand specific system requirements because these will allow them to increase their influence in the organization.
5. The economic and business environment in which the analysis takes place is dynamic. It inevitably changes during the analysis process. The importance of particular requirements may change. New requirements may emerge from new stakeholders who were not originally consulted.
