Getting to Requirements: The W5H Challenge

摘要

Most systems engineers have a clear idea on how to transform a set of top-level requirements into detailed requirements that drive subsystem design and development. However, very few know an effective manner of "discovering" these top-level requirements themselves. It is often assumed that they will "appear" from somewhere. This paper describes a generic W5H technique that works well in extracting the true requirements from various stakeholders. W5H is shorthand for What, Who, Where, When, Why and How. The W5H technique is a handy mental framework to assist the engineer in transforming the needs, wants, and expectations of various stakeholders into a cohesive and complete set of top-level requirements.