"Requirements Always Change" ... Or Do They?

by Haim Kilov

It has become fashionable to design and develop business systems by starting in the middle, with the latest technological or e-commerce fads, which, supposedly, can solve most business problems. Specifically, business requirements for an IT solution often have not been appreciated (in fact, there may have been no effort, or minimal effort, to formulate them at all), as it has been fashionable to say that "requirements always change." Substantial underappreciation of business requirements may lead to (dignified or otherwise) hacking and to situations in which IT developers define business rules, while the business functionality of existing IT systems is not properly understood because business requirements for these systems are outdated or nonexistent.