• Ahmed Hassan

• Ghulam Murtaza

• Umar Farooq

• M Mannan Razzaq

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• BY:Ahmed Hassan

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Requirement Management

• Definition• Overview • The Roles of the RA • Traceability• Requirements activities • Tools • References

Requirement Management

Why Requirement Management• Between 40% and 60% of software

failures and defects are the result of poor software requirements management. In plain English, this means that about half of the problems encountered could have been avoided by making it clear, from the very beginning, what the customer expected from the respective project. This is to say that the programming was fine and the developers did their job well – only they did a different job from what they were supposed to.

Requirement Management Definition: “Requirements management is the

process of documenting, analyzing, tracing, prioritizing and agreeing on requirements and then controlling change and communicating to relevant stakeholders. It is a continuous process throughout a project. A requirement is a capability to which a project outcome. ”

Overview The purpose of requirements management is to

assure the organization documents, verifies and meets the needs and expectations of its customers and internal or external stakeholders. Requirements management begins with the analysis and elicitation of the objectives and constraints of the organization.

Requirements management involves communication between the project team members and stakeholders, and adjustment to requirements changes throughout the course of the project.

The Roles of the RA

The RA is in a strategic position to improve the practices in use on projects and in the organization. The analyst can have a positive impact on project success and also facilitate the organization’s improvement results by performing in several roles.

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Suggested Roles of the RA

1. Work collaboratively with customers, users, and system architects and designers to identify the real requirements for a planned system or software development effort to define the problem that needs to be solved.

2. Effectively with customers and users to manage new and changed requirements so that the project stays under control. Install a mechanism to control changes.

3. Be alert to new technologies that may help.

4. Facilitate the project’s reuse of artifacts and achieving repeatability.

5. Assist the project and its customers inenvisioning a growth path from the first release or version of a product through a set of staged releases to the ultimate system or product .

6. Advise the project (and customer) of methods, techniques, and automated tools that are available to best support requirements-related project work and activities .

7. Use metrics to measure, track, and control requirements-related project work activities and results.

8. Be able to facilitate discussions and to mediate conflicts.

9. Study the domain of the area in which the system or software is being used.

Traceability

Requirements traceability is concerned with documenting the life of a requirement. It should be possible to trace back to the origin of each requirement and every change made to the requirement should therefore be documented in order to achieve traceability. Even the use of the requirement after the implemented features have been deployed and used should be traceable.

• Tracing requirements also involves additional tests, performed from time to time, to insure that the process runs smoothly and errors are identified and corrected early on. When faced with a big project, you may have different sets of requirements, some that apply to the entire project, and some for parts of it.

• BY:M Mannan Razzaq

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Requirements activities

1. Investigation2. Feasibility3. Design4. Construction and test5. Release

Investigation

In Investigation, the first three classes of requirements are gathered from the users, from the business and from the development team. In each area, similar questions are asked; what are the goals, what are the constraints, what are the current tools or processes in place, and so on. Only when these requirements are well understood can functional requirements be developed.

The deliverable from the Investigation stage is a requirements document that has been approved by all members of the team. Later, in the thick of development, this document will be critical in preventing scope creep or unnecessary changes.

As the system develops, each new feature opens a world of new possibilities, so the requirements specification anchors the team to the original vision and permits a controlled discussion of scope change.

Continue…..

Feasibility

In the Feasibility stage, costs of the requirements are determined. For user requirements, the current cost of work is compared to the future projected costs once the new system is in place. Questions such as these are asked: “What are data entry errors costing us now?” Or “What is the cost of scrap due to operator error with the current interface?” Actually, the need for the new tool is often recognized as these questions come to the attention of financial people in the organization.

• Business costs would include, “What department has the budget for this?” “What is the expected rate of return on the new product in the marketplace?”

• Technical costs are related to software development costs and hardware costs. “Do we have the right people to create the tool?” “Do we need new equipment to support expanded software roles?” This last question is an important type. The team must inquire into whether the newest automated tools will add sufficient processing power to shift some of the burden from the user to the system in order to save people time.

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Design

Assuming that costs are accurately determined and benefits to be gained are sufficiently large, the project can proceed to the Design stage. In Design, the main requirements management activity is comparing the results of the design against the requirements document to make sure that work is staying in scope.

Construction and testIn the construction and testing stage, the main

activity of requirements management is to make sure that work and cost stay within schedule and budget, and that the emerging tool does in fact meet requirements. A main tool used in this stage is prototype construction and iterative testing.

For a software application, the user interface can be created on paper and tested with potential users while the framework of the software is being built. Results of these tests are recorded in a user interface design guide and handed off to the design team when they are ready to develop the interface. This saves their time and makes their jobs much easier.

Release

Requirements management does not end with product release. From that point on, the data coming in about the application’s acceptability is gathered and fed into the Investigation phase of the next generation or release. Thus the process begins again.

Tools

Tools

There exist many tools for requirements management. Like rmtoo , accompa, Rational RequisitePro etc.

Requirement Management tools help project teamsto manage their requirements, to write good usecases, to strengthen collaboration, to reduce projectrework, and to increase quality.

Reasons to Use Requirements Management Tools:

• Structured Requirements: Requirements management tools enable you to gather “structured” requirements.

• Save Time: Good requirements management tools can save you a ton of time when it comes to managing your requirements

• Easy to Collaborate: A good requirements management tool will enable you to collaborate with your internal and external stakeholders efficiently & effectively.

• Workflow & Best Practices: Good requirements management software tools have built-in workflow and best practices for a lot of tasks related to requirements management. This will help you make your products and projects more successful .

Things to Look for When Considering Requirements Management Tools

• Ease-of-Use

“Avoid tools that are too complex…”.If requirements management tools are too complex, your users simply won’t use it - no matter how powerful the tools are. After all, none of us come to work wishing our lives were more complex!

• Total Cost: Cost is always an issue with any purchase, and RM tools are no exception. Make sure to consider the “Total Cost”

Matches Your Needs Today: Select an RM tool that matches your requirements needs today, and will grow with you. There is often a temptation to pick an RM tool with the largest feature set. Avoid this temptation

• Try Before You Choose: These days, many requirements management tool vendors (such as Accompa) allow you to test drive their software for free, before you buy. Take advantage of it. After all, you won’t truly know whether an RM tool can help you until you try it out in real-life scenarios.

References

The Requirement Engineering Handbook

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requirements_management#Overviewhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requirements_management#Traceabilityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Requirements_management#Requirements_activitieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Requirements_management#Investigationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requirements_management#Feasibilityhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Requirements_management#Construction_and_testhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requirements_management#Releasehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Requirements_management#Design