We simply build something, look at it, and make adjustments until we are satisfied. Well, we've used the requirements techniques in this book to help our clients develop all types of products computer hardware, computer software, automobiles, furniture, buildings, innovative consumer products, books, films, organizations, training courses, and research plans. Nobody yet has demanded money back, but we can't prove no client ever will, because we do not know how to make product development into an exact discipline. Before working with us, many of our clients hoped that product development was an exact discipline. We like to quote John von Neumann because many of our clients consider him to be the foundling father of software.
Effectiveness always comes before efficiency .
But even if efficiency is your hot button, the most important route to efficiency in development is to eliminate those products nobody wanted in the first place. Another way to put this is, Anything not worth doing is not worth doing right. In this book, we're trying to help people discover what's really worth doing. We agree, and we also extend the same thinking to the requirements process. A data dictionary, for example, is a way of preserving the definitions that are painstakingly derived with the aid of some of the methods in this book.