Requirements Management

Policy Statement:

All projects must include a well-defined problem statement with well-defined business and technical requirements that assure the IT solution satisfies the business need.  Requirements must be thoroughly documented and understood by the project team.  Changes to requirements must be managed throughout the life of the project.

Purpose:

To ensure that project requirements form the basis for all planning and development efforts and that changes to requirements are managed throughout the life of the project.

Overview:

Requirements establish and maintain an understanding and agreement of the capabilities of the project.  Requirement statements, which will evolve over the life of the project, form the basis for estimating, planning, performing, and tracking the project’s activities and are critical to obtaining acceptance of the product at the end of the project.  Control of the requirements is directly related to control of the project.

Objectives:

• Ensure that system requirements provide a clearly stated, verifiable, and testable foundation for development and management of the project, based on business and technical requirements.
• Ensure that the scope of a development effort is defined by the system requirements and that these requirements form the basis for all plans, products, and activities.
• Ensure that project team members thoroughly understand requirements prior to developing a product or procuring commercial products for the project.
• Record initial project requirements and review and assess impact of all changes to the initial requirements throughout the life of the project.
• Track and document all changes to requirements and update all necessary technical and management project documentation affected by the change.
• Define, collect, and store metrics (measurements) associated with the requirements phase.

Responsibilities

The project manager has primary responsibility for implementing this policy.

Evidence of Compliance:

To demonstrate compliance with this policy, the following must be available, at a minimum:

• Project Statement and objective (all projects)
• Project Requirements Document (all projects)
• Requirements Control Methodology (medium to high risk projects)

Requirements Management Guidelines and Best Practices

Project Management