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Requirements Process: Requirements Management versus Requirements Definition

July 16th, 2008 · 9 Comments

Requirements are a great challenge in project management.  Clarity as to requirements is absolutely necessary in order for a project to succeed.  Most projects succeed or fail at the beginning of the project based upon the quality of the project requirements.  One of the challenges for the Project Manager is to assess and understand the uniqueness of the requirements gathering process for his/her individual project, which includes both Requirements Definition and Requirements Management.

Projects are like snowflakes; no single project is exactly the same as another.  So it goes with requirements and the .  The project manager needs to assess this task along with all others near the beginning of the project.

Requirements Definition

Preliminary scope statements are just that - preliminary.  They are high level and are designed to enable the project to progress to the next steps.  These next steps include progressive elaboration, where that preliminary scope statement is expanded into the detail that makes up complete requirements.  The Project Manager must get his/her hands around how that progressive elaboration process will take place as part of the project.

Here are 4 key inputs to the important project management challenge of gathering requirements:

  1. # of stakeholders and how widespread
  2. # of people on team and how widespread
  3. Size of project - $
  4. Complexity of the product of the project

A key Project Management challenge is visualizing what must take place in the requirements gathering process.  The key variables to think about are .  The more the project requirements are elaborated, the greater need there is to produce a Requirements Definition for each part of the project.  The more parts, and the more in depth the definitions, the greater is the need for a more sophisticated Requirements Management system.

Requirements Management

Thus, Requirements Definition refers to the details that make up the actual requirements, or description of the product of the project.  Requirements Management refers to the configuration management needed to manage an expanding and changing set of details that make up that Requirements Definition.  Usually in the beginning of the project, there is little apparent need for sophisticated Requirements Management.  Often it can be assumed that there will be a need, or that need will become apparent as the project unfolds.
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John Reiling, PMP
Project Management Training Online
Lean Six Sigma Training Online

Tags: Project Management Process

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