Requirements - What they are and why they are important

No product or service can ever be built to last without having a good understanding of its intended use and its user base.

Look around and you will be able to identify many products or services that have succeeded and those that have failed. Dig deeper and one of the root causes for its success or lack of, would be due to poor understanding of its intended use and its user base. 

This ‘understanding’ of the intended use of the product or service, and who is going to use the product or service is in essence, Requirement or Requirements. So, when ever someone asks, What do you want, What is the problem, What do you do today to overcome the problem, What can I do for you or a similar line of questioning, all they are trying to do is to understand your current problem and in turn, enabling you to frame the requirements to help solve the problem through a product or service.  

So, A requirement is something that a product or service must fulfill or a quality it must have. 

• The actions performed by a product are called Functional Requirements.
• The qualities or properties that a product must have are called Nonfunctional Requirements. 
• Issues that have an impact on the functional or nonfunctional requirements are called Constraints. These are also a type of requirement. 

An orderly process is required to discover, analyze, validate, document and manage the requirements. However the formality and rigidity of the process is influenced by the nature of the problem and the time it may take to find an acceptable solution.