Code Complete

by Steve McConnell

The overarching goal of preparation is risk reduction: a good project planner clears major risks out of the way as early as possible so that the bulk of the project can proceed as smoothly as possible. By far the most common project risks in software development are poor requirements and poor project planning, thus preparation tends to focus on improving requirements and project plans.

Many requirements issues disappear before your eyes when you refer back to the business reason for doing the project.

If a good problem definition hasn't been specified, you might be solving the wrong problem during construction. If good requirements work hasn't been done, you might have missed important details of the problem.

Design is the activity that links requirements to coding and debugging. A good top-level design provides a structure that can safely contain multiple lower-level designs.