Creative requirements: invention and its role in requirements engineering

ABSTRACT

Requirements is too often seen as a "stenographer's task", one where the requirements engineer passively listens and records while the stakeholders state their needs. However, this approach relies on stakeholders knowing what they need, and what they want. Experience tells us that except for rare visionaries, people do not know what they want until they see it. Many of the useful products that we take for granted today, did not come about from the stakeholders' imagination, but from an invention. In this tutorial we explain and illustrate how to use creative techniques to invent requirements that result in more useful, usable and competitive products. We provide a guide for invention, and show participants how to use this guide to invent innovative requirements for a familiar system.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Elicitation methods (e.g., rapid prototyping, interviews, JAD)

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.1 Requirements/Specifications
          Subjects: Methodologies (e.g., object-oriented, structured)

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors

Keywords:
creativity, requirements, use cases