Software and House Requirements Engineering: Lessons Learned in Combating Requirements Creep

Anyone who has built or remodelled a house and has developed or enhanced software must have noticed the similarity of these activities. This paper examines these two processes from the points of view of budgeting, scheduling, and requirements creep. It is admitted from the start that some of the argument and conclusions are based on popular perceptions and personal observation over small populations, that is, the houses the author and some close friends have remodelled and built and software projects in which the author has participated as an analyst, designer, programmer, or consultant.