Requirements Management
Skills
Requirements management is important because it empowers everyone to clearly understand stakeholder expectations and confidently deliver a product that has been verified to meet the requirements and validated to meet the needs.
Requirements management is a sophisticated process that includes many moving parts and diverse groups of people. Typically, the product management department, specifically the product manager, is responsible for the requirements management process. They work with the stakeholders, including business teams, customers, users, developers, testers, regulators, and quality assurance.
Additionally, a product may have only 100 requirements, or it may have several thousand. This number will depend on the product’s complexity and level of regulation. With all these elements at play, success hinges on the ability to get everyone on the same page, working toward the same goal.
Therefore, the business value of managing requirements is huge, as successful requirements management is key to project success. Benefits of requirements management include:
- Enhance understanding of stakeholder needs, requirements, and expectations and the problem or opportunity the product means to address
- Gain clarity on scope, budget, and schedule
- Minimize costly, time-consuming rework
- Increase product quality
- Mitigate risk
- Improve likelihood of delivering the right product, within budget and schedule with the required quality.
The importance of requirements management is intensified, however, when building complex or highly regulated products. This is because more time and budget are invested in development. The cost of getting it wrong — be it money, time, or reputation — is too great to risk. Hence, developers in regulated industries, or those who develop products with a lengthy list of needs and requirements need an experienced requirements manager.