Roadmap: How to Adopt the Requirements Management Practice |
This roadmap describes how to adopt the Requirements Management practice.
Main Description
### Getting Started Requirements management requires a repository (and related tooling) to store and manage the requirements. You also need to decide what attributes to store, and what traceability to maintain. This practice provides some default attributes and traceability, which are a good starting point. Requirement repository The requirements repository must have the following functionalities: Add new requirements and edit existing requirements Support requirements attributes Provide traceability between requirements and other work products Store history of editing transactions Report/sort/filter based on requirements attributes This practice is a good starting point that provides some basic attributes and traceabilty. Larger or more complex projects (such as systems of systems) might need additional attributes and traceability. However, consider starting with this basic set, and then adding additional attributes and traceability as needed. If you have a small number of requirements, you might be able to manage requirements with simple tools like spreadsheets, but larger projects will need effective requirements management tools. #### Common Pitfalls The most common pitfall with requirements management in general is excessive overhead. There is always a tradeoff between maintaining information, and the value that you get from that information. For example, if you decide to extend traceability to design and/or code, then you need to start by tracing to components, rather than low level elements such as operations or data items. If you trace to low level items, then you will spend a lot more time maintaining that traceability as the code changes. Another common pitfall is not maintaining the information in your requirements repository, and thereby creating confusion in the team, and drawing wrong conclusions, such as prioritizing incorrectly.
More Information
Concepts | Traceability
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