Guessing is not a strategy: How to build decision velocity with AI and real-time data
June 10, 2026 | Live Webinar
Requirements, C.I.A. Style
Rob Saxon is a Project Management Professional, Certified Information Systems Auditor and a trained Six Sigma Specialist. Rob is currently developing methods to integrate project management into previously unexplored areas of business.
“Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it.” - Peter Drucker
We can better gather and manage requirements through the C.I.A., but I’m not talking about spies. Our C.I.A. stands for:
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Customer or client
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Intended usage
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Actual functionality
These principles can also be represented by three questions:
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Who needs the solution?
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What is the solution supposed to do?
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Is the solution doing what it’s supposed to do?
The answer to the first of these questions helps us to understand who our customer or client is. The answer to the second question helps us in gathering requirements, and the answer to the final question helps us in managing requirements.
Customer or Client?
I once had a manager who said, “If you are managing a project for folks internal to your organization, they are not customers. Customers have a choice in the product, and very few of these folks have a direct choice about which product to use.” Indeed, many consumers of internal projects have power of contribution, but often not the power of selection. By definition, then, these consumers are our clients, because we must safeguard their requirements.
Certainly if …
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Can't this wait till I'm old? Can't I live while I'm young? - Phish |