“Rational” and its cognates are weapon words: rarely used in a descriptive sense, more often to hammer your interlocutor into submission: “but that isn’t rational”. I suspect this accounts for a large part of the defensiveness.
If we are to be rational designers, we must begin knowing what we must do to succeed. That information should be recorded in a work product known as a requirements document.
Note how the word “rational” is used—to imply that anyone who doesn’t assent to the author’s otherwise unsupported assertion that “information [about what we must do] should be recorded in a work product known as a requirements document” is to be considered irrational. You’re irrational if you prefer to communicate “what we must do” orally; or are comfortable with not starting out knowing everything you must do to succeed.
“Rational” and its cognates are weapon words: rarely used in a descriptive sense, more often to hammer your interlocutor into submission: “but that isn’t rational”. I suspect this accounts for a large part of the defensiveness.
Here is a good example in my own field: Parnas and Clements’ “A rational design process: How and why to fake it” (pdf).
An excerpt:
Note how the word “rational” is used—to imply that anyone who doesn’t assent to the author’s otherwise unsupported assertion that “information [about what we must do] should be recorded in a work product known as a requirements document” is to be considered irrational. You’re irrational if you prefer to communicate “what we must do” orally; or are comfortable with not starting out knowing everything you must do to succeed.