Design of Design - Chapter 17

Brooks starts this chapter by helping us to see why setting too many requirements early on is a bad thing. If you have many people, all with their own agendas, trying to put their own lists of requirements into a design, the end result will often be bloated and not as functional as they should be. The author explains to us that a designer should start with a few high priority requirements, all with their own "weight," and then break them down into sub-requirements as the project progresses. And, if the focus on requirements starts to drift to other things and the creation of new requirements, usually the urgency of meeting a deadline and keeping to a schedule will help to combat these things. Another solution to "requirement creep" may be to appoint knowledgeable project managers from the very beginning of the project. Also, Brooks points out the necessity of written contracts. The author then closes the chapter by talking about the building designing model and how it separates the contract for design from the contract for construction.