What vs. How … Could We Get This Straight?
Some professionals view the interrogatives what and how as peers, each addressing a distinct area of engineering solutions (e.g., designing systems). Other professionals characterize ‘requirements’ as the what, and the design for a system as the how. Contradiction? No, just a bit of confusion over perspective.- From the perspective of designing a system, both what (data) and how (processes) must be addressed. Both interrogatives (as well as the other four – where, who, when, and why) are essential for engineering a complete, robust solution.
- From the perspective of IT methodologies, requirements are always incomplete, so what the requirements say must be transformed into a system model that indicates how the requirements will be supported.
Tags: IT methodologies, requirements, system design, system model
Ronald G. Ross
Ron Ross, Principal and Co-Founder of Business Rules Solutions, LLC, is internationally acknowledged as the “father of business rules.” Recognizing early on the importance of independently managed business rules for business operations and architecture, he has pioneered innovative techniques and standards since the mid-1980s. He wrote the industry’s first book on business rules in 1994.