Point/Counterpoint

The key to successful systems is building what the stakeholders desire. In a way, this point can hardly be gain.said: nobody wants to build what the stakeholders don´t desire. But as usual, the devil is in the details. this paper contrasts two examples to illustrate what it can mean to build what stakeholders desire. There´s an old saying in software development that the users don´t know what they want until you give them what they asked for. Experienced developers often smile ruefully when they hear this, having been told at least once in their careers that a system they had delivered was totally unacceptable when it was exactly (as far as they could tell) what was requested. There´s more to delivering good software than following orders. The paper describes what positive role developers can play in discovering and exploring requirements