Take this poll or we’ll shoot this kitten

[Ed: If you read Tyner Blain via RSS you have to visit the site to vote in the poll. Also, we'll use a camera.]

An earlier post on CRUD use cases started a fantastic debate (both public and private) about what it means to write great software, and if it’s even possible to write good software when we start with requirements. This leads to a discussion of the value of requirements driven development (RDD). If you search on Google, you’ll see at least one whitepaper from every RDD-application vendor. Not exactly impartial.

So, here’s a poll. Coerced, maybe. Impartial – probably. If you’re new to the Likert scale – the unlabeled numbers (2,3,5,6) just serve to graduate the space between the “well described” positions.

Our poll asks how you feel on a McLaughlin scale about the impact of requirements on the greatness of software.

1. Metaphysical dependency. Great requirements enable great software (required, but not sufficient for greatness)

2.

3.

4. Take it or leave it. The benefits of requirements balance out the cost of managing them – no more, no less.

5.

6.

7. Inverse dependency. Requirements suck the life out of our team and our project – we’d be better off without them.

The poll:

Thanks for voting! And add comments if you want to explain your vote.