Requirements analysis includes those elements that determine the needs for a new product. The analysis seeks out various stakeholders and works through potential conflicts in goals and tasks. This requires a level of detail sufficient for coding, which may include architecture, structure, behavior, function and non-functional behavior of the program. A vision for Open311 is stated at http://open311.org/learn/ http://open311.org/learn/. The outline of the major ideas are copied, paraphrased or noted and expanded here. This page seeks to clearly state a common ground for goals and identify and work through any goal and task conflicts.

One key function of Open311 technologies is to report and track non-emergency issues in public spaces. However, nothing inherently limits this model to non-emergency issues. A second key function is to “start a conversation about the overall health and livability of a community: reporting intersections that feel unsafe, marking where a new bike rack is needed, or even suggesting how a vacant lot could become a park.” A third key function is to manage and encourage 3rd party efforts which would include integrating volunteer efforts to help supplement government workers and enabling the identification of a critical mass of concerns that could support entrepreneurial development of profit and non-profit organizations. A fourth key function is to provide an option for educators to add flags to problems and questions that are linked to a state’s educational objectives so that they can be used for school curriculum activities to bring relevance and motivation to school assignments and school service projects.