• Writing Better Requirements Part 2

• A variety of industries have benefited from this practice, inside and outside IT or MIS.

• Writing Pitfalls to Avoid

• Ambiguity... .

Write as clearly and explicitly as possible

• Multiple requirements... .

Requirements which contain conjuvnctions (and,with,also) often conflict. Individual parts can apply separately in different situations.

• Let out or Escape clauses... .

Requirements with: if, when, but,except,unless, altough, allow escape.

• Rambling... .

Long rambling sentences with arcane language and unreachable refenernces can lead to omissions and duplications.

• Mixing Different Kinds of Requirements....

Do not mix: user, system, business, and design requirements in documents

• Speculation...

Aviod generalizations or speculative words such as: usually, generally, often, normally, typically.

• Vague Terms....

Informal and unverifiable terms include: user-freindly, flexible, approximately, as possible, nearly

• Suggestions or Possibilities. ...

Possibiliities and suggestions are indicated with terms such as: may, should, might, could, aught, perhaps, probably

• Wishful thinking.. ..

Wishful or Impossible to meet terms include: 100% reliable. Totally safe. Handles all unexpected failures. Pleases all users. Runs on all platforms. Never fails. Fully compatiable to all future....

“Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple.”

“ Quality means doing it right when no one is looking. ”

“ The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. ”

“In reading about the lives of great men I found that the 1st victory they won was over themselves.Self-discipline with all of them came first.”

“Life is full of setbacks. Success is determined by how you handle setbacks.”