When an organization is faced with a problem or opportunity, the first thing that we, as Business Analysts (BAs), will do after we define the root cause of a problem is identify requirements. That’s because requirements are the detailed needs, conditions, or capabilities that a product or solution needs to fulfill in order to deliver value and contribute to overall business objectives. They define what stakeholders and users or consumers expect from a solution and serve as a foundation for development, implementation, and validation.
There are often many stakeholders or user types to consider, and each of them have different perspectives, and therefore different requirements and needs. To help you keep everything organized, you need a Requirements Management Plan (RMP).
In this article, we’ll define what a Requirements Management Plan is, and I’ll show you how you can benefit from creating one for your change initiative.
What is a Requirements Management Plan and Why do I Need One?
An RMP is a critical document that outlines how project requirements will be collected, documented, tracked, and managed throughout the project lifecycle. It serves as a guide for Business Analysts, Project Managers, and stakeholders, ensuring that requirements remain clear, consistent, and aligned with business objectives.
Without a well-defined Requirements Management Plan, projects risk scope creep, miscommunication, and costly rework. By proactively managing requirements, teams can improve efficiency, maintain stakeholder alignment, and deliver more value.
What Goes Into a Requirements Management Plan?
A well-crafted RMP includes several key components that help structure and standardize requirement-related activities. There are quite a few elements in a comprehensive Requirements Management Plan, so let’s go through them together.
Requirement Abstraction
Abstraction refers to the process of expressing requirements at different levels of detail. The level of detail that we use to describe a requirement can vary depending on the complexity of the project, importance to the project, stakeholder needs, and development familiarity with the requirement.
To put this another way, to plan for requirement abstraction, we need to ask ourselves, “what level of detail is required for communicating this requirement?” Let me illustrate this with an example:
Low level of detail: “Users can log into the website with a username and password.”
A little more detail: “Logged in users can access the members-only area with appropriate credentials.”
High level of detail: “API authorized users can access restricted website pages.”
Requirements Storage and Access
Requirements need to be visible and accessible, so communicating where they are held and how to view them is important to the transparency of your initiative. To keep them organized and within reach, we need to clearly identify and communicate where stakeholders can find requirements and how they can access them.
A well-organized storage system is crucial for managing requirements efficiently. Most teams will choose digital formats for efficient accessibility worldwide. But there are some local teams, often in Adaptive frameworks, who still like to use cards or post-it notes stuck on a wall or whiteboard. This typically only works for teams in one location.
Digitally stored requirements will often be held in software systems like Trello, JIRA, Agile Central, etc., or in the cloud with OneDrive, Google Drive, or SharePoint.
Requirement Attributes
Attributes are, essentially, the metadata about the requirements. It’s the data about the need. Requirement attributes document things like the requirement description, source (whose idea it was), the rationale, and similar contextual details that help define, manage, and track the requirement throughout its life cycle.
As well, the attributes help with other aspects of the initiative, like stakeholder identification, project estimation, requirement conflicts, and understanding the effects of changes.
Attributes may vary depending on whether you’re working within an Adaptive or Predictive framework, as each methodology has its own unique needs and priorities. However, regardless of the approach you’re using, it’s important to ask yourself, “What specific details about this requirement are necessary to fully understand and support the underlying business need?” Let that question guide which attributes you capture.
Requirement Reuse
Sometimes requirements can be used for more than one project. Reusing previously defined requirements can save time and effort, especially in organizations that handle projects that repeat. Some of these requirements can include company standards, regulatory requirements, business rules, and business processes.
The RMP outlines processes for identifying reusable requirements and integrating them into new projects while ensuring proper validation. It can help to have a document with a standard set of requirements that can be reused and tweaked for each project.
In addition to saving time and effort, reutilization of requirements can help reduce elicitation and analysis efforts, promote consistency across projects and products, and can be used in training and documentation.
Requirement Traceability
Requirement traceability is the ability to trace a requirement from the original source through deployment and support. It’s a big task, but for some projects, it’s an important one because it helps to identify when and why requirements change (and the other connected requirements affected by the change), it shows what needs to be tested, validates the requirement is met in the solution, and can help with post-implementation support.
There are a number of ways that requirements can be traced, including cross-referencing, using a Requirement Traceability Matrix (RTM), and using software that tracks changes, including some metadata like author and dates, automatically.
Requirement traceability is not necessary for most change initiatives. While it can be important for some high-risk projects, for others, it can create more effort and soak up precious time, with little to no value in return. Ultimately, you need to ask yourself, “is it critical to the project objectives that the lifecycle of the requirements are traceable from the start of the project to the finish?”
Requirements Change Control Process
Business and user needs are changing all the time, even during your project planning and development. Because of this, we need to put a trace in place to control the change. A Change Control Process helps you and your Predictive change initiative stay slightly flexible to the ever-changing business needs while also protecting the overall value and schedule by which the change can be delivered.
If you want to confidently manage change on your projects, I look deeper into building an effective Change Control Process in my course, Plan the Project as a Business Analyst. And because The BA Guide is all about making your job easier, the course also includes a ready-to-use Change Request Form template. This means you’ll not only understand the process, but have the tools to put it into action right away!
Requirements Approval Process
Before implementation, requirements need formal approval from key stakeholders. In the RMP, we need to outline a Requirements Approval Process for reviewing and approving requirements, identifying decision-makers, approval criteria, and documentation requirements.
Through this approval process, we ensure that the requirements have enough detail, are understood and accurately documented, meet a business need, and create value.
Manage Requirements Effectively with The BA Guide
Mastering requirements management is crucial for Business Analysis Professionals and Project Managers alike. Our Plan the Project course covers essential skills, including how to create a robust Requirements Management Plan, manage scope effectively, and align stakeholders.
Plan Ahead and Thank Yourself Later
It can be very helpful to create a Requirements Management Plan before you get too deep into the project. While the RMP can be detailed and takes some time to put together, it will help answer those requirement-specific questions, about what they are, where they reside, how they are updated, and who does the approvals.
By planning these criteria ahead of time, you’re giving yourself time to think them through properly and set expectations with your project team and stakeholders.
– Jeremy Aschenbrenner
The BA Guide
