Requirements engineering is a challenge. It involves engineering knowledge, skill in dealing with people, and experience in assessing business realities such as competition and political pressures. The good news is many of the traps, which ensnare the unwary, can be avoided by applying the simple guidelines presented here for writing better requirements. 

Because the presentation focuses on practical techniques for discovering and writing requirements, it should be useful on many different kinds of system and software projects.  The message of the presentation can be summarized in a single sentence: Understand and agree upon what users want before attempting to create solutions. 

Finding out what’s needed instead of rushing into presumed solutions is the key to every aspect of system development. Most technical problems can be solved, given determination, patience, a skilled team and a well-defined problem to solve.

SPEAKER: Ian Zimmermann, Managing Principal (Telelogic North America)

Ian Zimmermann is a Managing Principal at Telelogic North America. As a Managing Principal, Ian oversees engagements and provides expertise to companies engaged in improving their requirements management capabilities and companies preparing requirements for tender. He has been a key figure in developing requirements engineering processes, associated templates, and guidelines, as well as procurements for government and Aerospace companies.

As a process consultant, Ian coaches and mentors Fortune 500 companies developing requirements processes to support their various Information Technology needs. These companies span the Finance, Insurance, Medical Device, Automotive, Telecommunication, Aerospace, and Technology/Scientific industries, and often engaged in internal organizational improvement programs aimed at SEI CMM or ISO 9000 certification.

Before joining Telelogic, Ian had over 10 years of formal software development and system engineering experience in the government and Aerospace industry.

Ian has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering from the Royal Military College of Canada and is a Certified Professional Engineer and Member of the Project Management Institute (PMI).