Managing Software Requirements: A Use Case Approach, Second Edition

Chapter 23. On Ambiguity and Specificity

Key Points

• The requirements “sweet spot” is the balance point of the greatest amount of understandability and the least amount of ambiguity.

• A learned skill, finding the sweet spot will depend on the team members' abilities, the application context, and the level of certainty you must provide so that your system works as intended.

• If the risk of misunderstanding is unacceptable, more formal requirements techniques may need to be applied.

Finding the “Sweet Spot”

One of the most difficult challenges we face in the requirements process is making the requirements detailed enough to be well understood without overconstraining the system and predefining a whole host of things that may be better left to others downstream ...