* Electronic copy only (pdf)

NCC Members have free access to this Guideline on the Principia website.

According to some engineers, a requirement is anything which constrains a system. In this view, requirements may be considered both negative and positive, depending on how one views the constraints. On the one hand, the constraints on a system represent the interests and desires of any organization or individual for whom the system serves a purpose or influences their activities - users, non-user employees, customers, managers, shareholders (sometimes lumped together as 'stakeholders'). On the other, constraints represent the costs of their imposition. Potentially more problematic than even this tension between costs and desires is the fact that the desires of different interested parties (and hence their requirements) may conflict. This has become more likely as the role of IT has expanded.

*This Guideline is only available as a pdf, which will be sent as an email attachment.