Managing Project Requirements - Best Practices

Summary

Project requirements management is a vital component of achieving successful outcomes. It assures that product and service design elements, and other expected outcomes, are aligned with an agreed-upon and prioritized set of needs.

To deliver a successful project, it is important to articulate and agree upon the project goals and scope and then clearly define and prioritize functional and nonfunctional requirements (i.e., qualities such as maintainability, reliability, scalability and other “ilities”).

Requirements should be based on stated customer needs or regulations, if applicable, and be tied back to a business case where appropriate. Likewise, project activities should tie back to requirements. Often, requirements are overlooked in favor of a brief statement of need, which isn't adequate to assess how well the project meets its stated intent. Even in an agile project, where the time and cost are fixed (and features are merely estimated), it is still important to have a set of starting requirements.