Agile requirements: opportunity or oxymoron?

We show that, in today's world, a requirement without agility is just as bad as agility without requirements. We have discovered a consensus that systems analysis and requirements definition, in particular, have fallen on hard times. Ten or 15 years ago we taught people structured analysis, information engineering, data modeling, and working with computer-aided software engineering tools to turn those requirements into running programs. Rather than understanding the user's business and information needs, some agile approaches attempt to give users what they say they want as quickly as possible. Every system of consequence needs good requirements. Without good requirements, the project risks increase dramatically. The better the requirements, the better people understand what they're trying to build (or acquire).