historical case study

The Vikings were the Norse warriors, explorers and merchants who raided, explored and settled wide areas of England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Iceland, France, Spain, Africa, and Italy. They started their expansion by executing multiple raids of the English shores. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, Viking raiders struck England in 793 AD and raided Lindisfarne, the monastery that held Saint Cuthbert’s relics. Their raids continued to increase in frequency and the number of participating troops, until in 865 AD the Great Heathen Army led by the Brothers Ivar the Boneless, Halfdan and Ubbe Ragnarsson arrived in East Anglia and established their presence in the Northern England until they were driven out by the English king Harold Godwinson in 1066. The archeologists and linguists recently came to a conclusion that all British towns that end with "by" - for example, Ashby, Corby, Crosby, etc. - were founded and named by the Viking invaders.

Interestingly enough Harold lost the famous Battle of Hastings in the same year to another descendant of the Vikings (Normans) who settled in the Northern France a hundred or so years prior to the events, future king William the Conqueror (or William the Bastard as he was known before the battle).

According to the Russian "Primary Chronicle" three Viking - or Varangian as they were known in Russia - brothers Rurik, Truvor and Sineus were the first kings of the Russian royal dynasty that spanned from the 9th until the 16th century. And, yes, famous (or infamous) Russian tsar, Ivan the Terrible who was a last ruling member of the Rurikid dynasty can trace his roots directly to the Swedish warriors, who arrived in Russia almost seven centuries prior to his birth.

After establishing their foothold in Russia, many of the Vikings travelled South to the Caspian Sea and farther to the Byzantium Empire, where many of the enlisted in the much-feared Varangian Guard of the Byzantine Emperors.

In the XXI century a branch of the Norman royal family headed by the Roger I conquered Sicily and ruled there for the next two hundred years. Vikings also reached the shores of North America where Erik Thorvaldsson and his son Leif Ericson established several colonies in what is today known as Newfoundland.

Katanas, or as we also know them the samurai swords, emerged in Japan sometime between the 12th and the 14th century during the Kamakura Period. Historians believe that katana has replaced the longer and heavier predecessor tachi because it could be drawn faster, thus allowing the samurai to draw the sword and strike down the enemy in a single motion.

Katanas were extremely sharp; the sword was designed to cut through the iron-plated armour. The legend has it that the best katanas forged by Japanese blacksmiths could cut through four to five individuals standing next to each other in one single stroke!

Another legend claims that katanas were responsible for saving the Japanese from the Mongol invasion in 1274 when badly outnumbered Japanese warriors were able to hold off an invading army of Kublai Khan until their fleet was destroyed by a typhoon.

Modern weapons experts consider katanas to be the best cutting tools ever made by humans as they combine two unheard of before attributes: razor sharp and yet resilient blade that could withstand considerable blows. The eternal problem that the blacksmiths had to deal with for thousands of years before was the fact that the hard steel was very fit to be sharpened, but the tempering (i.e. heating followed by fast cooling) process left the steel very brittle and susceptible to breaking from blows.

On the other hand, the steel that has undergone a slow cooling process remains relatively soft and thus better able to withstand strikes without breaking, but loses the ability to maintain the sharp edge.

Thus the Japanese weapon makers had to deal with the eternal and seemingly unsolvable issue: how do we make the sword blade hard enough not to lose its edge when sharpened and yet soft enough not to break when struck by other weapons?

They came up with an ingenious solution to address this centuries-old problem. The first step involved selecting the best samples of low-carbon, soft steel and high-carbon hard steel available. The each piece is repeatedly forged by heating and folding it numerous times to create a layered structure and work out all the impurities.

Later a high-carbon band of steel is heated again and bend into a U-shape, whereas the soft, low-carbon piece is inserted into the center (see Figure 1).

Figure 1

Abwehr, the German military intelligence organization has been created in 1921 as a part of the Ministry of Defence. It remained small and consequently not very important part of the Wehrmacht until on January 1st, 1935 it was taken over by the soon to be Admiral Wilhelm Canaris.

In a fairly short period of time Canaris was able to reorganize his agency into one of the most efficient intelligence gathering organizations in the world.  Abwehr's activities spanned through the entire world including United States, Canada, Africa and Europe including England and Russia.

With the opening of the Eastern front Abwehr was tasked with establishing Abwehr schools on the occupied territories of Poland, Baltic states and Western parts of Soviet Union. These organizations were responsible for recruitment, training and deployment of commando-style agents whose primary purpose have been the reconnaissance and sabotage behind enemy lines.

The aforementioned recruits were typically hand-picked by the Abwehr officers among millions of Soviet POWs who were captured in the first several months of the invasion. Some of them were convinced to enlist in the intelligence schools because they could no longer bear the horrible living conditions in the German POW camps, while others did this for ideological reasons, not the least of which was the hatred of Stalin's tyrannical regime in Russia.

After undergoing extensive training that included hand-to-hand combat, target practice, interrogation and intelligence gathering techniques, as well as radio operations to name a few, the graduates were  supplied with absolutely the best documentation provided by  Abwehr's Department 1-G responsible for false documents, photos, inks, passports and chemicals. It is important to note that German technology of producing counterfeit documents was probably the best in the world at the time. After all, they mastered the production of British pounds and US dollars that perplexed the most experienced experts on either side of the Atlantic.

The Burj Al Arab (The Arab Tower) hotel was built in 1999 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This project was conceived at the very top of the UAE government as a venture that would assist in transforming the country and the state from the exclusively oil-based economy to the trade and tourism-based market.

The ruling family of Dubai gambled – and by all accounts won – that the conversion into international hub of trade and tourism should start with a “wow-type” project that would demonstrate to the rest of the world that the Gulf country can:

• Undertake ambitious projects and see them to completion
• Has a rich cultural and historic heritage
• Has the supply of and the demand for luxury hotel accommodations

The project that lasted for five years – from 1994 to 1999 – delivered a 321 m (1,053 ft) structure that is now the fourth tallest hotel in the world. Burj Al Arab stands on an artificial island 280 m (920 ft) from Jumeirah beach and is connected to the mainland by a private curving bridge. The shape of the structure is designed to mimic the dhow’s (type of local boat) sail. It is very frequently referred to as the world’s only seven-star hotel; although the company managing it refuses to even acknowledge the fact that they were the ones who started using this epithet.

Burj Al Arab is one of the most photographed buildings in the world and definitely played an integral role in putting both Dubai and the United Arab Emirates on the world map.

The purpose of this case study is to attempt to take this enigmatic and grandiose product and try to reverse engineer the requirement elicitation process from the few high-level business requirements to general features to detailed technical requirements. Let us start with what the business requirements for this project may have looked like (see Table 1):

Table 1