Foreword to the First Edition

It is almost ten years now since Don Gause and I published Exploring Requirements: Quality Before Design. Our book is indeed an exploration, a survey of human processes that can be used in gathering complete, correct, and communicable requirements for a software system, or any other kind of product.

The operative word in this description is "can," for over this decade the most frequent question my clients have asked is, "How can I assemble these diverse processes into a comprehensive requirements process for our information systems?"

Gause, Donald C., and Gerald M. Weinberg. Exploring Requirements: Quality Before Design. Dorset House,1989.

At long last, James and Suzanne Robertson have provided an answer I can conscientiously give to my clients. Mastering the Requirements Process shows, step by step, template by template, example by example, one well-tested way to assemble a complete, comprehensive requirements process.

One watchword of their process is "reasonableness." In other words, every part of the process makes sense, even to people who are not very experienced with requirements work. When introducing this kind of structure to an organization, reasonableness translates into easier acceptancean essential attribute when so many complicated processes are tried and rejected.

Robertson, James, and suzanne Robertson. Complete Systems An analysis: The Workbook, the textbook, the Answer. Dorset House, 1998.

The process they describe is the Volere approach, which they developed as an outcome of many years helping clients to improve their requirements. Aside from the Volere approach itself, James and Suzanne contribute their superb teaching skills to the formidable task facing anyone who wishes to develop requirements and do them well.

The Robertsons' teaching skills are well known to their seminar students as well as to fans of their Complete Systems Analysis books. Mastering the Requirements Process provides a much-requested front end for their analysis booksor for anyone's analysis books, for that matter.

We can use all the good books on requirements we can get, and this is one of them!

Gerald M. Weinberg

www.geraldmweinberg.com

Febraury 1999