Let us take a step back and look at how the software application development space and the database design industry both found ways to reduce redundant data and to promote information reuse.

Legacy vs. Normalized Database Programming:

Data redundancy and repetition was a major issue in early database design. This inefficiency resulted in both performance issues, and excessive storage space requirements. The solution was to create a normalized database approach, where the information being stored is not redundant.  This was a significant step in the evolution of the database industry.

Software developers originally produced code using the functional programming approach. Eventually, programmers realized that code could be reused if it were created in a modular & reusable manner. As such, the industry invented object oriented programming. This approach allows developers to reuse blocks of code within the application and across the enterprise.    

Conclusion:                                                                            

Both application development and database design evolved such that information is normalized and can be reused. It is inevitable that the requirements development space should go through a similar transformation process.  eDev Technologies created inteGREAT in order to address the issue of creating a normalized requirements knowledge base.