"You see how the current requirements are being developed, [and] you discover that the requirements aren't being understood or documented correctly, if at all," by IT developers, said Barkley, who also heads the Kansas City Rational Users Group. "That is the beginning of the problem. [IT] people assume what the customer wants."

Turning to templates

To help bolster the process at the health care company, IT developers created requirements management templates to provide users with a formal process for listing what they need in new applications.

The company began using the templates this month, Barkley said.

The company hopes use of the templates can first halt the practice of users passing their needs on to developers either verbally or in notes with "large paragraphs of rambling," according to Barkley. The new process also calls for users to approve work on an application at multiple stages of development, he added.