This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Ruby Buzz by Jared Richardson. Original Post: The Trap of Enterprise Requirements Feed Title: Agile Artisans Feed URL: http://agileartisans.com/main/rss Feed Description: Jared's Blog Latest Ruby Buzz Posts Latest Ruby Buzz Posts by Jared Richardson Latest Posts From Agile Artisans

The path of a requirement in a large organization is often foreign to those more familiar with small or medium companies. In smaller arenas, developers and testers help define requirements. Everyone has a clear view of what's being built because they had a hand in defining and refining the ideas. Do you have a question about what this feature should be or what this report should have? Go ask Mike or Sue. It was their idea.

Enterprise scale is different. When the program budget is half a billion dollars and there are a few thousand developers and testers involved, requirements are shifted to a specialized team. Often an entire division is tasked with searching out and documenting requirements. These requirements are compressed and converted into documents that can be shared with teams of developers to implement, and teams of testers to verify. Each team can become specialists and do their own job at peak efficiency. Unfortunately for most enterprises, this model doesn't work well.