Stakeholder and User Needs

It seems obvious that the development team will build a better system only if it understands the true needs of the stakeholder. That knowledge will give the team the information it needs to make better decisions in the definition and implementation of the system. This set of inputs, which we call stakeholder or user needs , or just user needs for short, provides a crucial piece of the puzzle.

Often, these user needs will be vague and ambiguous. "I need easier ways to understand the status of my inventory" or "I'd like to see a big increase in the productivity of sales order entry," your stakeholder might say. Yet these statements set a most important context for all the activities that follow. Since these needs are so important, we'll spend some significant time and energy trying to understand them. We'll define a stakeholder need as

a reflection of the business, personal, or operational problem (or opportunity) that must be addressed in order to justify consideration, purchase, or use of a new system.