Summary and Assessment

Abstract

A friend of the authors told us a real story of information system development. Once his research group got a project of developing an information system for a large enterprise in suburb of Beijing. The project group led by our friend went to this enterprise, worked there for six months, and finally worked out a draft of requirement specification of that enterprise. They brought the very thick document of requirement specification to the general manager of the enterprise. This general manager, after reading the thick document, said “yes, it’s all right. Please start your project according to this document”. Our friend then asked the general manager to undersign his name. At this moment, something unexpected has happened. The manager said to our friend: “No! How can I know whether we have to make revisions to this document in the future?” After hearing these words of the general manager, our friend was such amazed that he stood there and remained “dumb as a wood chicken” for long time, did not know what to reply to the general manager.