Complete thesis - Murdoch University

experience can offer much more to a project.If you think about it, the dangers are just an extension ofthose that are inherent in developers doing RE, in that they aretoo ready to assume that they understand what the system shoulddo, and leap into design too soon. They obviously get therequirements from *somewhere*. OTOH, good REs tend to beparanoid about their understanding of the users’ needs andactivities, simply because they know how easy it is to guesswrong.As a final aside, slightly related,I think that it’s very important for an RE to be able to have several models (or severalvariants) of the user domain in his/her head at any one time, and usually there areconflicts between and within these mental models.Gradually the models disappear or merge as the elicitationproceeds. If we tried to ensure that we were always working withone perfect model, I don’t think we could workefficiently.Andrew Gabb (Australia)5 May As for now, I do not know any other way of teaching the “art of analysis” than the oneused by craftsmen when an underling just starts by helping his master. I do not expectthat the universities could produce ready-made system/business analysts or requirementengineers. What I do expect, though, is that the graduates in these disciplines know“what and how much they do not know”, and “dangers” should be counted to this issue.From my practice, this is not the case, the graduates tend to think they know quiteenough to do analysis, requirements engineering, etc. right away....As far as ‘dangerous’ is concerned, the term has been used ina very special meaning,namely:‘when used unconsciously or/and by an unexperienced or unqualifiedanalyst’.Ilia Bider (Sweden)59