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IBM Software

Requirements definition and management

July 2013

Ten steps to effective requirementsmanagement


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2 Ten steps to effective requirements management

IntroductionRequirements definition and management is recognized as acore discipline for the successful delivery of software andsystems engineering projects; this discipline is also required bystandards, regulations and quality improvement initiatives suchas Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI). In addition,requirements definition and management is applicable whether you are using a waterfall, iterative, agile or hybrid approach tothe systems and software engineering lifecycle.

Creating and managing requirements are a challenge for IT,systems and product development projects or any activity where you have to manage a contractual relationship. You must effec-tively define and manage requirements to meet your customerneeds, while managing compliance and staying on schedule and within budget.

A poorly defined requirement can have a negative impact; itcan have a domino effect that could potentially lead to time-consuming rework, inadequate deliveries or budget overruns.Even worse, a poorly defined requirement can make businessprocesses non-compliant or cause potential damage to theorganization; in worse cases, it can lead to shutdown of business.

Requirements definition and management is an activity withgreat potential to deliver a higher and faster return oninvestment (ROI).

Defining a requirementRequirements are the foundation of systems and software devel-opment. Therefore, project teams must understand the various

attributes of a good requirement. A well-defined requirement is:

Correct. A requirement is technically accurate and legallyappropriate.

Complete. A requirement presents a complete idea. Clear. A requirement is clearly defined and not ambiguous.

Consistent. A requirement must not be in conflict with otherrequirements.

Verifiable. A requirement must be verifiable; the applicationmust be suitable to address requirements.

Traceable. Each requirement is distinctively identified andtracked.

Feasible. A requirement must be effectively addressed withinthe specified cost and schedule constraints.

Modular. A requirement must be easily changed withoutexcessive effort.

Design-independent. A requirement does not pose specificsolutions on design.

Each requirement definition must first form a complete sen-tence, containing a subject and a predicate. These sentencesmust consistently use the verb shall, will or must to showthe requirements mandatory nature and should or may toshow that the requirement is optional. The whole requirementspecifies a desired goal or result and contains a success criterionor other measurable indication of quality.

Once these basic but necessary rules are applied, ten steps thathelp developers at organizations better define and managerequirements can be used.

Step 1: Structure requirementsStructuring requirements is the first step in controlling andimproving the quality of your defined requirements.

Duplicate requirements can lead to twice the quantum of work,conflicts and eventually double your maintenance costs.

Omitted requirements may lead to missing functionality or causeshortcomings. Therefore, requirements must be structured toenhance understanding and to avoid duplication and omission.

Traceability to higher- and lower-level requirements enables your teams to assess coverage more effectively.


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Step 2: Address and link customerneeds, requirements and contractsSpecialists at organizations typically collect their customer needs,captured as is. These needs undergo an internal translation torequirements in a format that meets the requirements character-istics described above. These needs may also be made moregeneric and less customer-specific so the system can addressmultiple customer needs. In addition, a stable contractualagreement, which is a legally binding third document, is oftenused. Specialists must capture these levels of user requirementsto maintain intelligent traceability and enable change impactanalysis between them.

Specifications and contractual documents must be generatedfrom the requirements repository. With this central location, you must also maintain links to outside elements, for example,customer documents, emails and contracts.

By managing multiple representations of customer needs, project

teams have better control over contractual agreements and theycan help increase the possibility of project success.

Step 3: Manage constraintsRequirements must not only describe functional behavior butalso non-functional requirements, which are also known asconstraints. Non-functional requirements can be critical forcompliance and regulations and can add quality to the system. Typical non-functional requirements can specify:

Performance Interface Security Safety Reliability Availability Maintainability

Writing better requirements includes providing coverage forconstraints because of shortcomings in these areas. For example,performance, reliability and ease-of-use generally cannot bereengineered back into the system once developed. By takinginto account all types of constraints relevant to your industry,

your project teams can greatly increase their chances of success.

Step 4: Visualize requirements Most requirements analysts find augmenting textual require-ments with modeling helpful, whether that includes drawingpictures on a whiteboard, utilizing presentation tools such as

Microsoft PowerPoint or creating a mental model. Theserepresentations must be managed along with the requirementsto help ensure consistency, traceability and change control.

Visual requirement modeling provides a simpler and morepowerful way to communicate with and elicit requirements fromcustomers and users. Visual requirement modeling also helpsclarify requirements and create a common understandingbetween all development team members and stakeholders.

Although models and images should not replace clear, unambig-uous textual requirements, your teams can enhance communica-tion and collaboration among all stakeholders with visualrequirements.

Step 5: Integrate requirements withyour quality management plan

An efficient way to manage requirements is to ensure that theyare clearly mapped to test cases. Ensuring that each requirementis clearly verifiable from the start not only helps prepare laterphases of your project but also puts the writer in the correct

perspective. This is true for the nominal functional mode con-firming that the system or software does what it is designed todo. Requirements and their associated tests must also indicate

what the system should not do and what happens at the limitsor degraded mode.


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4 Ten steps to effective requirements management

This rule also applies to constraints that indicate how they would be tested is a suitable way to write better requirements.For instance, how would you test the requirement The softwaremust be highly usable? A better requirement would be, Anuntrained user will be able to generate a report in less thanthree minutes.

When you ensure that your requirements are clearly testable

early on in the process, you can more effectively improve projectsuccess rates and quality.

Step 6: Prioritize the requirements thatdeliver the greatest business valueIn many cases, the route to better requirements management isto have fewer requirements. Project teams cannot always offerthe luxury of implementing all customer requests, marketingideas and business suggestions when they also have to meetbudget and deadline objectives. Rather than trying to manageevery requirement, project and product managers must be able

to make decisions related to those requirements that bring themost value to the customer and help improve innovation. Sucheffective decision-making can be achieved by combining valueand priority information from stakeholders and by defining theappropriate combination of requirements.

By creating and maintaining this link between engineeringrequirements and business and customer needs, the senior man-agement can help ensure that resources are spent efficiently.Development and implementation can similarly align technicaldecisions with your organizations strategy.

Step 7: Respond more rapidly butaccurately to changing requirementsRequirements are subject to continual change. As a projectprogresses, project teams need to remain agile, adapt to engi-neering imperatives and respond to evolving marketplacesituations and customer needs. Writing a perfect first require-ment is insufficient if its evolution is not well-managedpoorlycontrolled change can lead to inadequate systems and software,rework effort and loss of revenue.

Your project teams must implement a reliable and repeatablechange control process that helps turn this challenge into anopportunity. With this change control process, your teams canbe more competitive, control schedules and respond to evolvingcustomer needs.

Step 8: Capture and track metricsand trends

Todays complex projects demand automated data collection and

reporting facilities to streamline project management. As such,project managers and all stakeholders need a managementdashboard of metrics and trends that enable them to quicklymonitor project activities such as progress, growth and volatilityof actual requirements. In other words, project managersmust keep their focus on decision making instead of manuallycollating data and preparing reports. Most importantly, thedisplay of key requirements monitoring information must beat a high level, enabling users to manage by exception and spottrouble areas more quickly. A high-change frequency on aspecific requirement or a whole subsystem may indicate thatthe requirement must be revisited with the customer. Alarge amount of rework on implementation may point to apoorly-specified original requirement.


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Trends should also be used to learn lessons from past systemsand software projects: could issues and problems have beenidentified earlier on? This wealth of information must be usedto build the organizations knowledge database.

Step 9: Provide examples of goodrequirementsBy providing examples and counterexamples of good require-ments and documents, project teams can enhance the quality,consistency and completeness of their requirements. Theseattributes can originally be templates, industry standards andrules inside a repository or a corporate intranet.

The next step must be to use good requirements from each proj-ect that reflect your teams domain expertise to build a corporateknowledge database. Textbook requirement examples rarelyreflect a companys needs and its own previous experience. Pastrequirements must be annotated during a project postmortemto indicate any notable information whether positive or negative.

New projects can, for example, examine the traceability that previous projects have used for regulations to understand how they were taken into account and to identify teams that have alreadyachieved compliance for their projects.

Step 10: Reuse requirements When a good requirement has been written for a previous proj-ect and is applicable to a present situation, the natural reaction would be to reuse it by copying and pasting the description.However, this duplication breaks the traceability and eliminatesimpact analysis. A smarter approach to reusing requirements isto maintain a link between the two requirements; for example,

creating a reuse type link. With this link, analysts can accessthe original requirement at any time to check allocation ofimplementation. Similarly, any changes made to the originalrequirement such as detected issues, updates, can lead to thenotification of reusing teams.

By implementing smart requirements reuse, your project teamscan improve knowledge sharing across teams and facilitate

impact analysis.

ConclusionRequirements definition and management are among the mostimportant activities in any project and efforts in this regard canhelp improve and accelerate ROI. Requirements definition andmanagement is also the first process improvement area to focus,based on the garbage in, garbage out rule: if requirements arenot clear, any other effort may help you to produce the wrongproduct faster.

The first step to effective requirements management is to under-stand the simpler rules that make a requirement good. In addi-tion, training courses and guidance can help your project teamsachieve this goal.

After the basic rules are in place, your specialists can furtherincrease the quality of their requirements by implementingtodays tested practices. These process improvement steps aregreatly aided by implementing requirements management soft-

ware that not only helps project teams to manage requirementsmore effectively but also helps improve their future projects byimplementing lessons learned from past and present projects.


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For more information To learn more about requirements management andIBM Rational software for requirements management,contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner, or

visit: ibm.com /software/products/us/en/subcategory/SW740

Read our blog on requirements management:http://ibm.co/requirementsmanagementblog

Additionally, IBM Global Financing can help you acquire thesoftware capabilities that your business needs in the mostcost-effective and strategic way possible. Well partner withcredit-qualified clients to customize a financing solution tosuit your business and development goals, enable effective cash

management, and improve your total cost of ownership. Fund your critical IT investment and propel your business forward with IBM Global Financing. For more information, visit:ibm.com /financing

Copyright IBM Corporation 2013

IBM CorporationSoftware GroupRoute 100Somers, NY 10589.

Produced in the United States of America July 2013

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