Requirements describe the problem, and provide a direction for composing a solution. The remaining deliverables, leading up to the creation of software, are created from the requirements. These includes the architecture, design, implementation and deployment documents.

By defining the problem, the requirements document also serves to bracket the scope of …

See Holub's column "Requirements Gathering" [Requirements Gathering ] for the goods on what is actually useful and what isn't so useful in this activity we call "Requirements Gathering".

I have to applaud the notion that "focus on the minutiae" misses the whole point. A clear problem statement is perhaps more important …