During the Second World War, the United States government attempted to release a memo for the blackout order of 1942 to hinder aerial bombers. “Such preparations shall be made as will completely obscure all Federal Buildings and non-Federal buildings occupied by the Federal government during an air raid for any period of time from visibility [...]
Every engineering project has requirements of some sort. Requirements encapsulate a common understanding of what is needed along with associated constraints and conditions. Requirements form the foundation from which development proceeds and downstream artifacts are generated. They are not optional. But there is tremendous diversity in how to write requirements; each method has proponents and [...]
Functional Requirements vs User Requirements Requirements are the foundation of any engineering project. And as any engineer will tell you: you need a strong foundation. Confusion tends to crop up when teams begin authoring different types of requirements, especially when defining user requirements vs functional requirements. The lines between different types of requirements blur. It [...]

William Mulholland was awoken by a call sometime after midnight, a terrible accident had occurred. “Please, God. Don’t let people be killed” were the only words out of Mulholland’s mouth as he reached for the phone. When a high-value engineering project fails, it is a media sensation. First, the organization’s name is smeared across the […]

Shooting for the Stars Over 60 years ago, a milestone was achieved in science and for humankind – NASA’s 1969 Apollo 11 mission. Most know of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, but they would never have made it into the history books without the contribution of more than 400,000 people. The three astronauts […]