The old computer adage “Garbage –In- Garbage Out (GIGO) is quite true when developing new consumer products. One of the key reasons new products fail in the marketplace is because of bad feature/function set requirements presented to New Product Developers. Goal-Oriented Requirements Elicitation [1] is a critical element to obtaining Good Requirements because all of the pertinent information relevant to designing the consumer product can be used by the New Product Developer. A Feasibility or Functional Objectives is a Marketing Document that assists in capturing Good Requirements early in the New Product Development Design Cycle by outlining all of the product’s feature/function set attributes.

The Feasibility or Functional Objectives document should also capture and or define the problem being solved by the proposed product. The ideology behind Product Creation is based on the simple principle that the intended device is designed to solve a fundamental problem affecting a societal need such as health, education, or economics. To create a product for the sake of creation has no value in a company’s Product Marketing Strategy. The proposed product should solve one of the fundamental societal elements as mentioned or provide a benefit such as enhancing an emotional, physiological or psychological experience and creating a living environment of comfort & convenience.

Goal-Oriented Requirements Elicitation is a high level event, whereby the product’s system boundaries are established by all major stakeholders involved with the New Product Development Project. Establishing goals in the writing of a Feasibility or Functional Objective provides Product Creation focus which is critical in the New Product Development Process of capturing Good Requirements.

However, Goal-Oriented Requirements Elicitation never ends because as the product evolves the project development efforts should change within an acceptable window (Design Freeze Date). In establishing Good Requirements, Project Scope Creep should be eliminated as least minimized as much as possible due to its ability to prevent freezing design objectives which extends the project’s development Timing Schedule for the target product.

In practicing this basic New Product Development technique of Goal-Oriented Requirements Elicitation, which falls under the technical discipline of Requirements Engineering, the next Big Thing Creation will not be driven by GIGO.

[1]. International Journal of Software White paper “Requirements Engineering: A Roadmap”, S.Easterbrook, B. Nuseibeh, www.cs.toronto.edu/~sme/papers/2000/ICE2000.pdf