Defining and Managing IT Project Requirements

Course overview

Reduce IT project time and costs. Gain the necessary information to develop a proactive environment for requirements management. Identify, document, analyze, track, control, and manage changes in requirements throughout a project’s life cycle. Determine key roles and responsibilities in requirements analysis and management. Discover the importance of allocating and tracing requirements, validation, and verification. Develop tools and techniques to use throughout the requirements process, methods to conduct an inspection, and ways to reduce risks.

Prerequisites

• A comprehensive introductory project management course such as Project Management Fundamentals (HC577S) plus Project Risk Management (HE536S), Leadership and Communication Skills for Project Managers (HE537S) and other core project management courses

Audience

Course objectives

Learn how to:

• Identify the main problems encountered when managing requirements
• Write clear and concise requirements
• Develop a Requirements Traceability Matrix and a requirements specification document
• Define appropriate classifications for project requirements
• Explain the roles and responsibilities involved in managing requirements
• Identify the differences among requirements specification standards
• Select and monitor performance metrics for requirements management activities

Next steps

• Cost Estimating for IT Projects (HE544S) or other advanced Project Management topics leading to recognition of your knowledge and skill by passing the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification appropriate to your country or region

Benefits to you

• Identify, document, track, control, and manage changes in requirements throughout a project’s life cycle
• Understand the key roles and responsibilities in requirements analysis and management
• Learn methods to conduct an inspection and ways to reduce risks
• Prevent potential problems from become serious and causing schedule and cost overruns

Course outline

Overview

• Explain why good requirements are critical for project success
• Differentiate between behavioral and non-behavioral requirements
• Determine the hallmarks of a good requirements process

Requirements in the IT/IS Development Process

• Use a “best practice” model for requirements as viewed through the Software Engineering Institute’s SW-CMM®
• Determine differences in requirements gathering based upon the SDLC model used
• Explain the importance of making requirements gathering a repeatable process

Setup and Startup

• Identify the key requirements stakeholders and conduct a stakeholder analysis
• Identify hard and soft resources of requirements
• Explain the inputs and outputs of a requirements repository and define a requirements classification scheme

Identify and Document

• Collect and clarify requirements using surveys, interviews, JRP/JAD sessions, workshops, simulations, usability studies, and prototypes
• Prepare requirements documents
• Describe the attributes of system requirements specifications and requirements traceability matrices

Analyze and Refine

• Describe the role of the requirements analyst
• Explain partitioning and decomposition of requirements
• Identify the usefulness of prototyping and modeling

Review and Approve

• Describe the review and approval process
• Determine the inspection process
• Discuss the roles and responsibilities of the inspection team

Allocate and Trace

• Explain the importance of the requirements allocations and traceability
• Allocate requirements
• Track requirements throughout the project life cycle

Verify and Validate

• Discuss verification and validation techniques
• Be able to validate requirements with clients
• Demonstrate that requirements have been satisfied

Change Management

• Use change control tools
• Incorporate changes to project requirements
• Ensure that links are traceable throughout project documentation