Task: Manage Changing Requirements |
Maintain consistency between requirements and corresponding project modules as changes occur over time.
Disciplines: Requirements
Purpose
To update requirements in accordance with approved change requests To maintain validity and consistency of requirements and other project work products To understand the impact of requirement changes
Relationships
Roles | Primary Performer: Analyst | Additional Performers:
Inputs | Mandatory: Stakeholder Request | Optional: None
Outputs | Requirements Attributes Requirements Traceability
Main Description
This task describes the necessary updates to the requirements for approved changes. Changes might cause you to add, edit, or remove requirements. In order to keep a complete change history, you must remove requirements by marking them as obsolete in the project, rather than physically deleting the requirements. Transaction information is captured in the requirement repository for further reference. After the change, it is necessary to re-assess the traceability, and ensure the validity and consistency across the project.
Steps
Identify changes
Identify how approved change requests need to be reflected in the requirements, the attributes, and traceability. In less formal organizations, there will be some focal coordinating role that is responsible for ensuring that changes are approved. In organizations that apply rigorous change management practices, approved change requests will come from a Change Control Board (CCB).
Record and update the changes
Add, update, or remove requirement text based on the approved changes. Update the revision number of the requirement, and describe the changes made. If you must delete a requirement, mark it as "obsolete" instead. This will preserve the change history of the requirement for reference.
Assess impact of the change
Examine the traceability links going to and from modified requirements to see if the changes made to the requirement affect other requirements or work products. When the reassessment of traceability reveals that a change impacts other requirements or other work products, communicate the change to the parties responsible for them. When there is automated support for the reassessment, it is often possible to configure it to automatically generate notification. The result of assessing the impact is that other requirements need to be changed as well. Those requirements must be assessed in turn.
More Information
Concepts | Requirement Attributes Traceability Traceability Matrix
Tool Mentors | How to assign attributes with RequisitePro How to establish and verify traceability with RequisitePro
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