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Next in our brief history of change - Change as part of the landscape. Before, the world was static, and so were requirements...

The concept of Change began to creep in a bit later – initially as a “defect” in the requirements collection process, or as something that came from “those pesky users” who “couldn’t make up their minds”. But, as packaged software products proliferated, the concept of requirements change began to take hold.

It was obvious that a commercial software package would need to undergo “evolution” of the feature set and functionality, if only to support the upgrade fees and the competitive position of the package. This evolution concept led to more modern notions of product lifecycle, and mapping features and functions to specific releases in an orderly and evolutionary way.

This, plus the emerging complexity of business, and the obvious changes in the business climate in a relatively short period of time, sensitized systems practitioners to the need to consider requirements change as an integral part of the software development process. And the arrival of the Internet, with a new set of technologies, and the “disintermediation” effects of the web, added a new dimension of change.

Disintermediation removed middlemen from a number of business value chains. Businesses could now contemplate communicating directly with customers rather that communicating with a distribution channel. This lead to a complete re-thinking of lots of different applications, and introduced the concept of dynamic, or ever-changing requirements. Who knew when another transformation was just around the corner?

Larry and Marie go to Hollywood

Yes, dreams do come true. Last weekend I took my wife to Hollywood to attend the Scientific and Technical Academy Awards. Garrett Brown was honored with a Distinguished Achievement Award for his early work on the Skycam. Story and pictures coming up.