Management Bug

By definition, customer requirements are particular characteristics and specifications of a good or service as determined by a customer. (1) The success of every company is dependent on its ability to create products and services that address unmet customer needs. (4)

Requirements analysis is critical to the success or failure of a project. The requirements should be documented, actionable, measurable, testable, and traceable to the identified business needs or opportunities. (2)

Companies’ idea to “delight” their customers has become so entrenched that managers rarely question it. (3) Probably that’s the reason why 70% of organizations still do not take effective action to improve the quality of their requirements adequately. (5) The blind acceptance of the customer requirements come with all sorts of negative impacts.

At the project level, the main impacts are: - scope creep, negatively affecting budget and completion time - low utilization of resources and higher overheads - inadequate business process design - lower productivity - time-consuming and costly rework

At the business level, some of the issues are: - lost opportunities for the business - lost advantage relative to competitors - breaches of regulatory compliance - poor stakeholder engagement and loss of trust - reduced business process efficiency due to poor solution design - negative user experience due to cumbersome UI design - lack of cohesive integration

Poor and unquestioned requirements may lead to project failure. (6) Customer requirements are the lifeblood of projects and businesses. Don’t accept them lightly!

Usual Suspects

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Sources

Since we believe the Management Bugs are common and typical, every description is created and adapted from articles, blog posts, and definitions from other sources and authors:

(1) https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/customer-requirements/52784 (2) https://www.visual-paradigm.com/guide/requirements-gathering/requirement-analysis-techniques/ (3) https://hbr.org/2010/07/stop-trying-to-delight-your-customers (4) https://strategyn.com/outcome-driven-innovation-process/customer-needs/ (5) https://www.tecnova.com/blog/consequences-requirements-specification-template (6) https://www.batimes.com/articles/how-to-prevent-the-negative-impacts-of-poor-requirements.html