Chances are you won't be able to deliver on everything your customer wants. Asking good questions at the beginning of a project can help you determine where your customer wants to go. Although you may not be able to give them everything they want, if you are able to deliver the top ten things on a list of fifty items you've still delivered value. Keeping the lines of communication open is essential to helping you achieve your project goal.

Translating customer requests into software requires exploration, learning, and discovery. As such, this Reference Point lists resources you can use to learn more about requirements exploration and modeling. Ellen Gottesdiener—a recognized authority on software requirements—provides her top recommendations for books, journals, and online resources on the subject.

If you buy a hammer, you are not considered a master carpenter automatically. The same holds true for tool knowledge alone solving requirements problems. Kelley Schmidt shares the biggest lesson she learned on a project: commercial process and tools alone cannot lead to project success.

Darren Pulsipher looks at Visual Modeling with Rational Rose. He concludes: "Rose is far from the perfect Visual Modeling tool, but it is definitely one of the best OO tools on the market, and the most popular. Rational Software has done a great job in supporting its tools with user conferences, training, professional services, and seminars."