I'm currently working through a handful of requirements that will close the feature gap between an older content management system and a newer one. Both have been developed in-house. The first being MS based and is loosely a content management system, the second Java/XML/XSL based, and really a content management system. One thing I'm fighting is keeping the old process wrapped around the old system from leaking and staining the new system.
One quirk of the old process is that it generated hero's. These hero's are people who participate in the process, saw obvious inefficiencies, and wrote scripts and things to make things easier for everyone. Great, keep up the good work hero!
The new system really can't afford to have hero's. The existence of a hero means your process is broken. It means something could be better, and people are building a fabric of scripts and tools they become more and more dependent on.
The new system must support a working and efficient process, and where it is no longer working (for whatever reason), the tool and the process should co-evolve to be more efficient. What we want is to identify the broken or inefficient aspects of the process quickly, and fold them into the requirements process.
What we don't want are requirements that specify the hero scripts be supported. Which is exactly some of the requirements we are seeing get through.
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