Unless you live in a world filled with unicorns and rainbows, writing realistic requirements is critical. When you set unattainable goals, the best result you can hope for is a frustrated engineering team. Write requirements that are attainable, and your team will surprise you with what they can achieve.
Writing Attainable Requirements
One of the ten big rules of writing a good MRD is writing attainable, or realistic requirements. These are requirements that can be practically implemented, by our team, according to our schedule. Practicality is a function of the skills of our team members, the costs that we face to implement a particular requirement, and the circumstances in which we are developing. Agile proponents use the phrases ‘people trump process’ and ‘politics trumps people.’ To write attainable requirements, we have to think about our people and our political situation.