3. The method of claim 1 wherein the list of features includes for each feature a name and description of the feature, an owning team name, and listings of software functions, sensors, and actuators used by the feature.
1. A method for managing data associated with a product design and its requirements, said method comprising: maintaining a list of features, residing in a relational database on a server computer, where said list of features may be used by any product development team; maintaining a list of software functions, residing in the relational database on the server computer, where said list of software functions have been created to support each feature; maintaining a data dictionary, residing in the relational database on the server computer, said data dictionary containing a list of data items which may be used in all features or software functions, where the data dictionary includes as attributes for each data item a name and a description of the data item, a data item category which identifies the data item as either constant or variable, a data item type which identifies the data item as either integer or floating decimal point, a minimum value and a maximum value for the data item, an indication of whether the data item is an array, an owner feature name, an owner software function name, an owner person name, an initial value, a fail soft value, an indication of whether the data item is a trigger for an action in a software function, a list of consumer software functions, a scale factor to be applied to the data item, and a time period which indicates how long the owner software function takes to execute; maintaining a glossary of technical terms which may be used in any product design, feature development, and requirements development; and maintaining an acronym library containing a list of acronyms which may be used in any product design, feature development, and requirements development.