Has this interaction ever happened to you:User: “We want to start billing the customers by ….. (completely new way of billing, timing, etc.) IT Pro: “That shouldn’t be too hard — write down what you want it to do, and we’ll whip up a timetable.” …1 Week Passes…User: “We’re billing the new way starting today.” IT Pro: “WTF? Where are the requirements?” User: “If you had built it right the first time, it probably could handle what we want to do today.” And so on.Sound familiar? It’s as if the user/product manager/end consumer/sponsor/whatever and the IT Pro are speaking a completely different language. A few cycles of this game, and you realize why the laborious labyrith of requirements, sign-offs, user acceptance testing software development wheel got started.No matter how many times I run into this, I still get pissed off. If the damm users would only get a clue. There has to be a better way. And there is. I suspect, however, that newer methods of rapid development and evolution of requirements (and verification of requirements with the end user) require TOO MUCH EFFORT for the lazy user. You actually have to think about what you want in software, and specify it clearly and frequently. But there’s hope — approaches such as Ruby-On-Rails help the rapid iteration and prototyping camp quite a lot. I guess I’m still an optimist at heart. Careers