Identification of requirements

Abstract

At the beginning of a technical design process the requirements for the product which, usually, are not clear and unambiguous, have to be identified. Frequently, customers formulate wishes and demands respectively solutions instead of requirements. A typical example is a task of the kind: to develop a product just like product P, but better/cheaper/nicer. If an engineer accepts such a kind of order without getting to the bottom of the original motivation the project will be doomed to failure. © 2009 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.