Requirements Management
Key components of requirements management
It is more expensive to fix delivered defects than those captured earlier in the lifecycle, and poor requirements are behind the majority of delivered defects. Still think that effective requirements management shouldn’t be the top priority in the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) optimization?
What does requirements management mean?
It is easy to understand where the problems start. Many organizations still use text-based documents to inform their elicitation and requirements review and do so outside of a change management control or workflow system.
An organization cannot realistically optimize their requirements management practices unless they understand the key components of requirements management itself. Effective requirements management is built on three key pillars:
- Elicitation through visualization
- Collaboration and commitment
- Change management and traceability
Elicitation through visualization
Text-based documents present too much detail too soon and don’t include a visual expression of business need, leaving room for ambiguity. Mapping out the process flows – the who does what, and when – equates to a more tangible understanding of what’s being asked for. It is this understanding which clarifies the bigger picture and encourages stakeholder buy-in.
Putting requirements within the context of these activities results in more complete requirements and identifies gaps and omissions earlier in the process. Visualizations – namely simulations or ’mock-ups’ of user interfaces – created before any actual development takes place, significantly reduces costs and rework time.
Collaboration and commitment
Strong collaboration encourages commitment from key stakeholders. Review and feedback processes must be simple, quick and thorough. They must avoid the duplication of effort and redundancy associated with document-centric or mass email approaches. Complex business systems can easily result in sprawling requirement reviews and multiple inputs and document versions.
While visual-based requirements can provide focus, ongoing collaboration is vital if the final delivery, often many months later, is to reflect the constantly changing realities of the business need. Keeping all stakeholders informed throughout using a single channel avoids surprises during the approval process and simplifies the coordination of collaboration activities.
Change management and traceability
Managing change throughout the life of a requirement, from elicitation to delivery, is crucial. Business objectives change quickly and downstream phases, such as development and testing, must be similarly flexible. Even agile development teams, with their emphasis on closer collaboration and tight integration between business owners and development, can struggle without it. Projects grow and teams become spread out, crossing technical and geographic boundaries: upstream changes become harder to control.
But even before a single line of code is written, there is a logical flow within requirements management, from high-level objectives to business requirements, before they are broken out into the functional and non-functional and passed on to design. Changes at every stage impact the others. Bi-directional traceability and real-time impact analysis can keep stakeholders aligned. And changes do not stop as the process moves into development – market forces continue to exert business pressure, while technical opportunities and challenges pull developers in new directions.
Capturing requirements quickly and effectively, maintaining visibility throughout as priorities change and paths shift, ultimately delivers applications that reflect true business needs and meets the primary goal of effective requirements management.
Learn more about our requirements management solutions
Caliber®
Requirements management
Caliber gathers, refines and organizes requirements to align with software development that meets the needs of the business. So you deliver the right software faster.
Ensure success and save money by making sure you're developing the software the business needs.
Borland Products
Performance testing and more
Our world class software development products work across the entire Application Development Lifecycle to transform good software into great software.