MINOR ISSUE: "improvements on the status quo"

Harald Tveit Alvestrand harald at alvestrand.no
Thu Jun 12 23:43:41 CEST 2003


No, I'm not finished yet :-)

Section 2.2 of -issue- reads:

   Engineering requires appropriate trade-offs: Engineering success
   needs refinement only to the point of 'fitness for purpose' which
   should help to balance the tension between time to market and
   perfectionism. The use of appropriate Engineering Practices should,
   for example, prevent specifications being recycled in pursuit of
   perfection when they are already adequate improvements on the status
   quo.

ISSUE: "improvements on the status quo" is not the best formulation - for 
new specs, it's unmeasurable; in other cases, it is debatable whether the 
improvements are "adequate".
SUGGESTED RESOLUTION: Use the language from 2026 section 4.1.1: adequate 
"with respect to the requirements placed upon it."

Of course, appropriate Engineering Practices would be to make sure we know 
what requirements we are placing upon it before evaluating this...



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