{"id":1248,"date":"2008-10-02T01:04:15","date_gmt":"2008-10-02T08:04:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/2008\/09\/26\/reverse-engineering-requirements\/"},"modified":"2019-08-07T14:33:45","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T21:33:45","slug":"reverse-engineering-requirements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=1248","title":{"rendered":"Reverse-Engineering Requirements?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Josh Nankivel<\/p>\n

\"UseFellow blogger Craig Brown over at Better Projects<\/a> asked “Why reverse engineer requirements?”<\/a> in a recent post.Interesting question: Craig asked what value there is in trying to derive requirements based on an existing system. There are two points that came to mind on this.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. If formal requirements were not captured when the current system was designed, and you are about to do another project to build something similar, this might come in handy. Personally, I would rather start with a functionality description, etc. as reference material and start the actual requirements gathering almost from scratch.<\/li>\n
  2. When I gather requirements, I find it very useful to do a simplified set of use case scenario diagrams to capture high-level needs. They can also be very useful for mapping out the processes that relate to and\/or interface with a given system. If I were building a new system similar to something that is already in use (and there were no documented requirements from the last build) I would construct use cases with the users to document how their needs are fulfilled today. In fact, I have done this in the past more than a few times. Note that the existing system may have functionality that is obsolete or unnecessary<\/span>, and so I would not want to incorporate those features into the new product. If you derive requirements from a design specification, you may spend time building stuff people won’t use anyway. The root of all requirements must be the stakeholders who will “have a stake” in the product when you are finished.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Great post Craig, a very stimulating question!<\/p>\n

    About the author
    \n<\/em><\/p>\n

    \n

    \"JoshNankivel\"<\/a> Josh Nankivel<\/a> is a Project Planning & Controls Control Account Manager and contractor for the ground system of the Landsat Data Continuity Mission<\/a>, a joint project between the USGS<\/a> and NASA<\/a>. His academic background includes a BS in Project Management, summa cum laude. He can be found writing and contributing in many places within the project management community, and his primary project management website is located at pmstudent.com<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Josh Nankivel Fellow blogger Craig Brown over at Better Projects asked “Why reverse engineer requirements?” in a recent post.Interesting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[439,38,825,50,437,438],"class_list":["post-1248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-goals","tag-business-analyst","tag-project-management","tag-reddit","tag-requirements","tag-reverse-engineer","tag-use-case"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1248"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14102,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1248\/revisions\/14102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}