When “Five Minutes” Becomes a Requirement
False precision enters requirements surprisingly easily. A measured value, an estimate, and an acceptable tolerance are not the same thing.
A number in a requirement looks reassuring.
“The process shall complete within five minutes.”
Five minutes sounds precise. It can be tested. It can be put into a specification. It can be passed to engineering, procurement, software development or verification without anybody having to interpret words such as “quickly” or “within a reasonable time.”
But there is a question that should come before all of that:
Where did the five minutes come from?
Imagine that someone observed an existing process several times. It normally took about five minutes. During requirements work, that observation was recorded as “5 minutes.” Later, someone converted it into a formal requirement:
The process shall be completed within 5 minutes.
Something subtle has happened. The source information has not become more accurate, but the requirement has.
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