Requirements Management
Understanding and managing requirements accurately
Requirements management means capturing, structuring, and documenting ideas, wishes, and objectives in such a way that everyone has the same understanding of the system to be developed. The result is a clear picture for both the customer and the engineering team. Every requirement is documented in a comprehensible manner, linked to design, implementation, and testing, and versioned as needed. This ensures that everything remains transparent and manageable, even when changes are made.
The big advantage: Misunderstandings are avoided, risks are identified early on, and collaboration among all parties involved is simplified and made more efficient.
Why requirements management makes all the difference
Properly operating requirements management is indispensable not only in highly regulated industries such as automotive or aerospace. It also creates a clear and consistent structure in everyday development projects, replacing the often cluttered and error-prone documentation of requirements using Word, Excel, or PDFs.
Requirements management thus lays the foundation for requirements engineering: the process of consistent development in line with requirements, across domains and disciplines.
From the initial requirements to changes in the project to final product acceptance, requirements engineering ensures that nothing is lost and that all parties involved have access to the same, up-to-date information at all times.
Success factors for end-to-end requirements engineering
Consistent requirements engineering demands continuous alignment of requirements with the resulting engineering artifacts, including feedback loops and, if necessary, correction of both the requirements and the artifacts, depending on what is needed.
This necessitates requirements management that involves all relevant stakeholders from the very beginning in order to establish a common understanding. Requirements must always be articulated in a clear and unequivocal manner—the less leeway for interpretation, the better.To accomplish this, the ability to use other notations in addition to natural language is essential for specifying requirements precisely.
It is also essential to continuously maintain requirements and keep them up to date, as they may evolve as the project progresses.
Another key factor is end-to-end traceability: Only when each requirement is linked to the corresponding artifacts from design, development, and testing can the overall picture remain complete and reliable.
How requirements management interacts with other disciplines
Requirements management does not exist in isolation, but only reveals its full potential when combined with other disciplines: as the foundation for end-to-end requirements engineering (RE).
The traceability of individual requirements across all artifacts created during the course of the project constitutes the backbone of the RE process. Among other things, it enables continuous, regular monitoring of the implementation of requirements and continuous verification and validation. If refinements or changes are necessary, these are proposed, reviewed, and implemented through a defined process.
In system design and software development, requirements flow directly into design artifacts such as architecture models, interface definitions, or software models.
In test management, traceability back to the requirements facilitates clarity about their content and thus forms the basis for defining test cases. Test results are also included in the link chain, ensuring that each requirement has been implemented correctly.
Effective variant management is unthinkable without requirements management and the associated requirements engineering, which enable the differences and similarities between product variants to be described precisely. And finally, it plays a central role in quality and compliance management, because requirements form the basis for verification and audits.
Not every requirement is a good requirement
The quality of requirements is another often underrated factor for well-functioning requirements management. Important criteria for the quality of requirements include clarity, necessity, verifiability, feasibility, completeness, and consistency. In theory, any notation can be suitable for describing requirements if it can be used to describe a desired property precisely and unambiguously.
INCOSE (International Council of Systems Engineering) has defined a number of quality criteria, including: necessity, clarity, traceability, and verifiability.
According to INCOSE, a set of requirements should also be complete, consistent (free of contradictions), and feasible to implement within the given constraints.
Some examples of popular tools for requirements management
IBM DOORS Next
IBM DOORS Next is an established web-based enterprise tool for complex projects. It offers comprehensive functions for traceability, versioning, and collaboration—particularly strong in regulated industries such as automotive or aerospace.
Siemens Polarion
Polarion is a web-based solution that combines classic and agile approaches. It supports end-to-end requirements management and integrates seamlessly into application lifecycle management processes.
Jama Connect
Jama Connect focuses on ease of use and collaboration. Teams benefit from clear traceability between requirements, tests, and risks without having to build overly complex structures.
TopTeam Requirements
TopTeam Analyst is a compact solution for small to medium-sized teams. It offers all core requirements management functions and impresses with its excellent price-performance ratio.
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If you would like to learn more about requirements management and the possible applications of IBM DOORS Next and IBM DOORS Classic, please continue reading here: