Review of "Introduction to Business Telecommunications, by George Reynolds." Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, 1984

The Ken Orr seminar dealing with Structured Requirements Definition is one which strives to teach the participan t a unique way from the traditional approach systems development . Emphasis is placed on viewing a system from th e required OUTPUTS so that the analyst can understand from the beginning of the study precisely what the system i s supposed to do . A strong case is made for the necessity t o rethink traditional approaches; that discussion is followed by the presentation of the tool of the Warnier/Orr diagra m to accomplish the systems task . This is accomplished in fou r heavily packed days of the combination seminar and work shop format . The seminar is held at various location s around the country and is also available for in-house presentation . The seminar is structured on providing the ground rule s for "Outthinking," and then explaining the necessary tool s with which to accomplish the thinking task . The methodology is based on the traditional structured approach usin g hierarchy, repetition, alternation, and sequence of event s identification and isolation. However, in the process, the analyst begins by looking at the desired output of a system (subsystem) and then decomposes (via Warnier/ Orr diagrams) the components that make up the entity to find th e input requirements . Thus, the output goes to the input in th e process of design . The processing requirements are identified as a natural process of the decomposition . The Orr system tools include: entity diagrams, assembly line diagrams, in-out diagrams, Warnier/Orr diagrams , data dictionary, and logic diagrams . The major problem with the seminar, which is true for many intensive instructional workshops, is the lack of time to adequately develo p an in-depth understanding to both the Orr approach t o requirements definition and all the supporting tools . While this is the beginning seminar, the concepts should be used i n the systems environment on a trial basis with additiona l seminars for depth . Additional seminars are available whic h focus on teaching the tools required to support the methodology. The need for the analyst to be exposed to alternate ways of systems development makes the seminar one wort h attending.