Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Imprecise Requests
Being imprecise, as opposed to “precise,” appears to refer to numbers or
numerical entities. That is, however, not always the case. One can be
imprecise when one says, “Let us meet at the entrance of Sears in York
Mall,” when there are many entrances to that particular Sears in that mall.
(One might say that this is an example of incompleteness, not imprecision.
We are not immune to ambiguity.) Database analysts are familiar with this
problem when they try to define “unique” keys for tables that turn out
to be not so unique after all in the real world.
Misunderstanding the Received Request
On the other hand, the information could be “correct” from the sender's
point of view but it is being interpreted incorrectly at the receiving end.
This is fairly common. The same e-mail sent to different members of the
team gets understood differently. Receivers always read what they get within
a cultural and personal context. A neutral-sounding statement can be inter-
preted as a criticism by a sensitive person. A person excessively sensitive
to criticism can read “between the lines” even when there is no such
intention. The history of the relationship between the sender and the receiver
often has some bearing. It is safe to assume that people always read between
the lines. If one has a piece of scrubbed, validated text that has been known
to work for a particular situation, keep reusing it. If one has a good e-mail
welcoming a new member of the team, the release of a new version or
any other communication that is used regularly, keep it aside and reuse it.
The Rashomon Effect
The Rashomon effect is based on Akira Kurosawa's movie
of that name about different “experiences” of the same
traumatic incident. Brian Lawrence, in an article in
Amer-
, draws attention to the so-called
Rashomon effect in software requirements, and the dif-
ference between misunderstanding and ambiguity. “It's
quite possible to have two or more perfectly legitimate
interpretations of a single concept at the same time,”
he writes. The software requirements may not be just
“misunderstood” — they are being perfectly understood
ican Programmer
but are being interpreted differently.
