requiriste

Requiriste is a term used in contemporary discourse to designate a practitioner who places requirements at the center of design, policy, and decision-making. A requiriste aims to identify essential needs, formalize them as verifiable requirements, and ensure that projects align with these criteria throughout planning, development, and evaluation. The term is most often encountered in software engineering, product management, systems analysis, and governance discussions, though it is not standardized and has rarely appeared in formal curricula or certification programs.

Origin and usage: The word blends require with the -ist suffix and has emerged as a neologism in online communities and some design-ethics writings. It is not a universally recognized professional title and is sometimes used descriptively to contrast with more fluid or opportunistic approaches.

Principles and methods: Core practices include requirements elicitation with stakeholders, classification of needs into essential versus optional, traceability from requirements to features and tests, validation against user and business goals, and governance to prevent scope creep. A requiriste also emphasizes measurable success criteria and risk-aware planning that ties decisions to stated requirements.

Relation to existing roles: The concept overlaps with requirements engineers, product managers, user researchers, and policy analysts. Critics argue that the term is vague or redundant, while supporters see it as a reminder to ground work in explicit needs rather than impulses.

See also: requirements engineering, product management, stakeholder analysis, verification and validation.