Why this decision matters
Reduce rework by aligning terminology, baselining stage scope, confirming understanding with samples and prototypes, and tracing changes to acceptance.
Make uncertainty visible early: translate verbal objectives into workflows, samples, interfaces and tests and resolve critical ambiguity before coding.
Conditions to confirm before development
- Create shared terminology, roles, workflows and data definitions
- Confirm requirements with representative samples and prototypes
- Baseline each stage and manage additions and changes
- Link decisions to owners, versions and acceptance items
Implementation and delivery approach
Validate high-risk questions first and parallelize low-risk modules behind stable interfaces. Keep feedback in one issue record.
Track requirement changes, rework causes, issue cycle time, first-pass review and acceptance differences to improve later stages.
Acceptance boundary
When objectives keep changing or decision owners are unavailable, engineering process can record impact but cannot remove the decision cost.