Where Are We on the "Fend off the Alligators - Drain the Swamp" Continuum?

Over the past ten years, we have seen many useful developments in software specification tools, languages, processes, and practices as well as the creation of a number of excellent requirements management tools. Numerous books and articles have been produced on requirements elicitation and development. We have leamed to explicitly specify complex synchronous and asynchronous processes using Petri nets, state diagrams, and structured decision tables. We are exploring the use of fuzzy logic and imprecise probabilities to improve our management of uncertainty in the design process. But, WAIT JUST A MINUTE! Where is the industry with respect to all of this? In spite of this dramatic progress, are there remaining holes and/or opportunities in our practice of Requirements Engineering? We find the industry to be all over the map as the answer to the former and an emphatic YES as an answer to the latter. We take a friendly look at the industry in terms of 1) requirements practices already in place from none to some to plenty, 2) what the industry means by “requirements”, and 3) what companies say to their stockholders and customers versus what their end products reflect. We will suggest a few simple ideas for enhancing the value of requirements over the full life cycle of the product. We will propose a more moderate strategy for realizing, in a practical way, greater opportunity through requirements engineering. We feel that, with modest but consistent effort, we can experience relatively large benefits. We suggest charming the alligators.