Requirements Management Flashcards
what is the definition of requirements management
Requirements management is the process of capturing, assessing and justifying stakeholders’ wants and needs.
what is a key attribute of a project requirement
Each requirement will have at least one acceptance criteria, which is the measure to demonstrate at handover that the requirement has been satisfied.
what are the 7b attributes of a well specified requirement
- uniquely identifiable: it addresses only one core requirement;
- current: it is up to date and relevant to the business need;
- consistent: it does not contradict any other requirement;
- understandable: concisely stated and not open to different interpretations;
- verifiable: compliance can be verified through inspection, demonstration, test or analysis;
- traceable: the requirement can be traced from the originating need, through the plan, to what is delivered;
- prioritised: its relative importance is understood
what are the 4 purposes project requirements are required for
- scoping the project
- estimating time and cost
- change control
- customer acceptance
what are the 4 stages of the requirements model
- Business Need
(Why) - Multiple techniques might be used to elicit the users’ requirements including interviews, brainstorming, focus groups, prototype models, questionnaires and story-boarding. Care must be taken to identify stakeholders’ true needs which might be quite different from what they are actually asking for. - Features (How) - The business need should not indicate a specific solution whereas the product features will indeed define how this need will be satisfied.
- Requirements
(What) - Requirements will help the project team understand exactly what is to be provided and forms the basis of the project scope. Requirements must be clearly defined, consistent (with other requirements), complete, traceable and verifiable (i.e. it is possible to determine that the system meets each requirement). - Acceptance Criteria - Each requirement should have clearly defined acceptance criteria in order that there is no ambiguity as to whether the requirement has been satisfied or not.
what is included in the requirements functional specification
this captures all the agreed user requirements in an unambiguous manner, defining ‘what’ is required but not ‘how’ the requirement will be met
what are the 2 categories for solution requirements
- Functional - Functional requirements state exactly what the system should do in any given situation. It is a binary state (yes/no, does/does not)
- Inputs, outputs and behaviours of the system
- Use cases
- Business rules
- Non-functional - Non-functional requirements specify the attributes that the system must possess. Sometimes these requirements are known as quality attributes.
- Usability
- Reliability
- Performance
- Supportability
- Security
what are the 4 steps of the requirements management process
- Capture: Capturing, documenting and structuring the requirements (and also its associated acceptance criteria).
- Analysis: Analyse to look for overlaps, gaps and conflicts and prioritise requirements based on their ability to realise benefits whilst taking the project context into account (business priorities, availability of resources, available budget etc.).
- Justify: The structure and content of the documented requirements should be reviewed by the stakeholders to make sure it accurately reflects their wants and needs and distinguishes between them. Functional requirements are relatively easy to test – ‘functional’ means that something happens or doesn’t. Non-functional are not easy as they are qualitative. They often involve words like ‘easy’, ‘simple’ or ‘fast’. For non-functional a range of attributes have to be defined that show how the qualitative word is measured, e.g. how speed is ‘fast’, what will be the evidence that something is ‘easier’?
- Baseline: Once agreed the requirements should be baselined and become subject to formal change control procedures.
what 4 elements may requirements also be structured around
- Value: How large is the benefit associated with each requirement
- Priority: What do stakeholders feel are the most significant requirements (see MoSCoW)
- Time: Business timescales will play a large part in determining the priority of requirements
- Process: How will the project team deliver the solution (for example, through the use of specialist sub-contractors)
what is the MoSCoW requirements prioritisation method
Must: non-negotiable requirements without which, the project is unviable
Should: should be provided if at all possible
Could: ‘nice-to-have’ if nothing else is impacted and time/budget is available
Won’t: very important in order that stakeholders have a good understanding of the project scope
what 3 areas are intrinsically linked to requirements management
Scope: The requirements form the basis of the project’s scope (i.e. what is actually going to be delivered and the work required to deliver the product). Having a good understanding of the business need will help define the most appropriate requirements as early as possible in the project life cycle.
Quality: Without this understanding, the quality (or ‘fitness-for-purpose’) of each deliverable may be significantly undermined.
Change control: Changes to the project scope will also have an obvious impact on the project requirements and part of the impact analysis should determine what effect any change has on the project’s requirements, feature set and ultimately, its ability to satisfy the stated business need.
what is the aim of value management
to reconcile all stakeholders’ views and to achieve the best balance between satisfied needs and resources
what is value management concerned with
improving and sustaining a desirable balance between the wants and needs of stakeholders and the resources needed to satisfy them.
Stakeholder value judgments vary, and value management reconciles differing priorities to deliver best value for all stakeholders.
