All software is designed to meet two kinds of demands: those of the user, and those of the business stakeholders.
The program or application must offer something to the end-user that will improve their experience, such as by simplifying tasks and creating new opportunities for interaction. At the same time, it must meet pre-set business objectives: to attract more customers, to foster better engagement, to facilitate efficiency, and so on.
It’s easy to identify desirable outcomes, but embarking on a new software development project is a risky undertaking. The chances of running over-budget—whether through scope-creep or deficiencies discovered too late in the testing phase—are relatively high. And even if the product makes it into the hands of the user on time and without too many problems, there’s always the possibility that the user simply won’t take to it.
One of the most challenging elements of any software development project is managing the requirements. Of course, it’s impossible to manage poorly-defined requirements. Projects with ambiguous, inconsistent, or incomplete requirements will invariably encounter critical problems and setbacks, no matter how well organized they are.
But even if the requirements are well-defined, the ongoing complexity of large-scale software development projects will turn even the clearest requirements into an impenetrable mess.
Developers have traditionally relied on tools like Word or Excel to manage their requirements. Team members share a document that lists all the requirements in a long row, with notes and details creeping out in column after column.
For a small project, such a rudimentary system can be adequate, but for big projects at international companies—where the list of requirements can number in the tens of thousands and modifications are made by team members on different continents—the old model doesn’t work.
For such large-scale projects, business leaders need tools specially designed for the challenge of requirements management.
Here are the top three reasons to use a dedicated requirements management system:
1) Repository
As we’ve discussed, today’s complex IT projects generate requirements at a scale that can no longer be contained by the old models for documentation. Coders, team leaders, Business Analysts, and CIOs all need better ways to quickly find specific requirements and see them in context. Sifting through spreadsheets just doesn’t make sense anymore. Developers need purpose-built digital architecture to properly administer requirements.
2) Versioning
Software development is an evolving process. Requirements receive continual annotation and modification as the project progresses. Because of the interconnectedness of all the moving parts, some of those changes need to be revisited. A good requirements management program allows team members and stakeholders to scan back through all the changes that have been made to any single requirement. If a problem arises, the solution can often be found by comparing previous versions.
3) Tracing
Many IT projects fail to deliver a working product on time and within the budget. Given the risks associated with such a critical investment of time, personnel, and resources, business leaders need to be able to stay focused on the goals that were defined at the beginning, instead of getting continually mired in the complexities of the process. A good requirements management program clarifies the links between the needs that inspired the project and the requirements that grew out of those demands.
Many large-scale IT projects must not only meet the needs of end-users, but also fulfill compliance obligations specific to the industry for which they were created. Detailed regulations add an extra level of complexity to the challenge of requirements management. Team members need a tool that clearly traces the connection between each requirement and the regulation it satisfies.
Requirements definitions should help the project stay and track, but all too often they feel more like a burden to developers, not an aid. By implementing processes that remove some of the drudgery of organizing and maintaining requirements, team members will re-discover the utility of having a clear map for the project.
Rather than a frustrating necessity, requirements management can actually become a place of creativity and innovation. When developers can see both the big picture and the fine-grain details together, the solutions they find will always point toward the original needs that inspired the project.
If you are interested in learning more, please contact us today.
