IT Requirements Management

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IT Requirements Management Balancing Needs and
Expectations
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Agenda

• IT requirements issues
• What does it mean to manage requirements
• Balancing need and expectation
• Trends in requirements management
• Risks of poor requirements management Benefits of
  good requirements management

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Requirements Issues
Impact of Requirements Defects

• 40 of software project errors are caused by
  requirements errors
• 70 of project rework cost is attributable to
  requirements errors
• 50 of total project cost is attributable to
  rework

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Requirements Issues

• What is requested is not always what is needed
• Requirements address symptoms, not problems
• Expectations dont match requirements
• Conflicting voices giving requirements
• Designs and solutions are mixed with requirements
• Development work starts before requirements are
  baselined
• Baselined requirements will change

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Requirements

• Requirements define the products or services that
  a project must deliver, and the standards for
  creating and validating those deliverables, in
  order to satisfy the terms of the project
• Requirements management is the process of
  defining, controlling, developing, validating,
  and verifying the completion of project
  requirements

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What does it mean to manage requirements?
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What does it mean to manage requirements?

• Initiation Product description
• Planning Project scope, schedule, cost, quality
• Execution Gather, develop, validate
• Close-down - Verification
• Control Change management, Quality Assurance

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Initiation

• Dreams and visions are not requirements, but set
  the stage for the project product
• Initial product description and project charter
  present highest level requirements
• Contracts may include high level requirements -
  constraints

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Planning

• Refine requirements
• Decreasing levels of granularity
• Dependencies
• Project schedule includes time for requirements
  determination, evaluation, development, and
  validation
• Project budget includes costs to realize
  requirements
• Integration of scope, schedule, cost, and quality
• Business trade-offs
• Technical trade-offs

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Execute

• Conduct requirements gathering
• Conduct requirements evaluation
• Baseline requirements
• Develop product to meet requirements
• Validate the product against requirements
• Implement approved changes to requirements

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Close-down

• Final check of traceability matrix
• Nothing forgotten!
• Client verification

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Change Management

• Accept change requests
• Perform impact analysis
• Conduct review process
• Follow action for approvals
• Follow action for rejections
• Establish new baseline for requirements

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Control
Quality Assurance

• Establish validation techniques
• Demonstration
• Test
• Inspections
• Establish review and approval process
• Establish standards and templates

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Standards to Establish

• Techniques for collecting, prioritizing,
  documenting, tracing, testing, validating
• Tools for recording, tracing, and managing
  requirements
• Processes for change requests, reviews and
  approvals, requirements determination,
  requirements management, continuous improvement
• Deliverables / templates for requirements
  statement, approvals and verification sign-offs,
  change requests, traceability matrix
• Roles for requirements determiners, client
  subject matter experts, reviewers, testers,
  developers, technical consultants
• Training to ensure requirements determiners are
  proficient in techniques, project team proficient
  in processes

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• Balancing Need and Expectation

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Need
What will best address the clients business
problem

• Perceived need
• Best solution
• Schedule need
• Financial need
• Prioritized need
• Dependencies

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Expectation
Thats not what I meant!
How the client perceives the product

• Efficient
• User Friendly
• Reliable
• Correct
• General Knowledge

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Manage All Requirements

• Business (Functional) Requirements
• A function of the project product or service that
  directly addresses a clients business need
• Non Functional Requirements
• A property the end product must satisfy
• Standards by which the product must be created
• Support structure that make the product possible
• Environment in which the product must exist

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Business Requirements

• Information
• Timing of events
• Format and content of
• Reports
• Web pages
• Transactions

• Calculations and Formulae
• Laws and Regulations
• Security
• Data validation
• Roles and Responsibilities
• Process flow

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Non Functional Requirements

• Auditable
• Available
• Usable
• Legal
• Cultural
• Standards
• Robustness
• Responsibilities

• Disaster Recover
• Backup / Restore
• Conversion
• Data Integrity
• Deployment
• Documentation
• Support
• Environment

• Hardware
• Software
• Performance
• Capacity
• Security
• Training
• Scalability
• Interoperability

Non functional requirements are often overlook
and under-planned
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Characteristics of Good Requirements

• Appropriate
• Attainable
• Correct
• Complete
• Concise
• Unambiguous

• Consistent
• Testable
• Verifiable
• Modifiable
• Traceable
• Implementation Independent

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• Industry Trends

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Trends

• Tools
• Agile methods
• Client participation
• Reusable requirements
• Requirements Engineering
• Defect collection

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RM Tools

• Record requirements
• Track dependencies among requirements
• Trace dependencies to components and validations
• Track status of requirements
• Manage versions and changes to baselined
  requirements
• Store requirement attributes
• Control access to requirements data
• Trigger communications (emails) to stakeholders

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Agile Methodologies

• Alternative to strict processes
• Dynamic requirements
• Adaptable to changes in technical and business
  needs
• Short term planning
• Client participation
• Focus on testing for verification
• Quick ROI

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Client Participation

• Keep the client involved throughout the project
  life cycle
• Reviews
• Functional Testing
• Issue Resolution
• Status updates
• Requirements clarification

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Reusable Requirements

• Object or components from one project
• Available for use in another project
• Object Libraries
• Converted for use in another project

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SEI SW-CMM and CMMI Requirements Management

• Baseline requirements
• Manage the requirements
• Maintain consistency across
• Requirements
• Plans
• Products
• Activities

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SWEBOK IEEE Computer Society

• Software Engineering Body of Knowledge

• Software requirements knowledge area for
• Engineering process
• Elicitation
• Analysis
• Specification
• Validation
• Management

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Requirements Engineering

• Supported as a specialization for requirements
  management
• Focused training
• Improved quality and consistency in requirements
  statements
• Improved requirements management
• Efficiency of process
• Metrics collection

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Defect Collection

• Support importance of strong requirements
  management
• Demonstrate quality improvement in process and
  product as defects reduce over time
• Identify phases where process improvement is most
  needed
• Support Root Cause Analysis
• Recognize severity levels in defects

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• Risks of poor requirements management
• Benefits of good requirements management

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Risks of Poor Requirements Management

• Inadequate statement of requirements
• Non functional requirements omitted
• Unstated requirements
• Poorly stated requirements
• Misunderstood requirements
• Failure to consult the right people
• End user
• Technical experts
• Business experts

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Risks of Poor Requirements Management

• Lack of commitment
• Review with client
• Review with developers
• Lack of client participation during development
• Create what you think they want
• Uncontrolled changed requirements
• No change management
• Scope creep

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Risks of Poor Requirements Management

• Lack of requirements accountability
• Failure to trace to completion
• Omitted requirements
• Imagined requirements (do work that was never
  asked for)
• Short-cut the requirements analysis phase
• Anxious for return on investment
• Start work before know what to deliver

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Benefits of Good Requirements Management

• Reduce rework on projects
• Reduce cancelled projects
• Increase client satisfaction