Requirements Management Practices and Project Management

One of the biggest culprit in software project failure is poor requirements management and that implies that project manager must should be well versed with requirements management practices while also being open, responsive and adaptable to the changes in requirements according to the changing business needs of the client.

I have worked with projects where the requirements are very clear and have also worked on ones where requirements/product features came in evolutionary model. Specifically in offshore model, it is important to get a clear signoff on each requirement from the client – easier said than done, but project managers have to constantly work at it. When it is difficult to gather set of requirements upfront, simple things like user stories, high level use cases or even simple understanding documents to write what we understand is enough to manage scope and get a signoff.

Gantthead has a nice article on “Requirements practices every project manager must know“. The article also lists benefits of having sound requirements management practices for best outcomes.

“Researchers have documented that 30 to 50 percent of total development cost can be attributed to rework…and requirements deficiencies account for more than 70 percent of that cost! “

How sound are your requirements management practices?