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Nebulous application requirements

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by Mark W. Kaelin

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A TechRepublic download explains how to transform a nebulous application requirement like "take a flat file that was produced by an upstream mainframe application and produce an XML document for a downstream application," into a flexible working solution.

https://www.techrepublic.com.com/i/tr/downloads/home/xml_legacy_dataPDF.pdf

[b]What was your most nebulous initial application requirement? How did you handle it?[/b]

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by tony hopkinson

Sounded over detailed to me almost as though someone was giving me the solution intead of the problem.

We want an MIS system.

What should it do

Show us Managment Information !!!!!

by ed woychowsky

By nebulous I was referring to the fact that nobody knew anything about the format of the input and the output beyond one was a flat-file and the other was XML. It was one of those ?you start coding and I?ll see what the user wants? situations. Not being a big fan of recoding I took the lazy, er, make that the efficient route.

by tony hopkinson

Convert a file or even write an MIS, at least they are self contained systems that you can attack with an iterative approach. Once the scope is fixed then you can come up with a phased approach. Nebulous scope and you've no choice but to measure out the pitch and set up the goal posts, otherwise you get fleeced.
One of my bosses got one.
Make the system fast enough to cope with whatever we want in the future.
Non-starter until you've had a good gaze in the crystal ball, that sort of thing.

by roger99a

I don't even understand the question, I just like your avatar. Time traveling dogs are cool.

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