Requirements Management Success Factors
Without adequate plans and procedures, software development teams will struggle to get the job done. That's why requirements management is one crucial part of any software project.
In an accelerating digital market landscape, change is constant and focus on UX and product quality are becoming critical success factors. Therefore, requirements management is becoming more and more important to engineers and development teams, and RM plays a great role in making or breaking the success of the product development organization.
But how do successful teams get it right? Here are the top five success factors for mature requirements management.
Top 5 requirements management success factors
Requirements management is an expansive topic, with a lot of considerations to be taken into account, especially in the case of complex software projects. In our experience working with software teams, the following concepts are the top "tried and true" requirements management success factors to focus on:
Traceability
An entire development team may have several different teams under its umbrella. Each of those teams uses different tools to manage their specific tasks and processes. This is even more true as the complexity of software and the needs of development teams continue to expand, driving the need for specialized tools and with it, silos and data gaps.
This results in the need for one singular team-wide method for tracking the development process. Integration and traceability are vital for product quality, transparency, and efficiency in development.
Advanced development tools such as integrated application lifecycle management platforms allow teams to track projects through every phase of the development process. In such a central collaboration hub, teams can see projects go from requirements management to development to QA and, finally, to deployment. The platform serves as a single source of development truth for all teams contributing to the final product.
Everyone tuning in to the same platform has everyone working toward the same goals. This significantly improves productivity, transparency, and delivery times.
Configuration and change management
The development process is more collaborative now than ever before. Customer needs are constantly changing. As a result, software requirements are becoming more complex, and more iterations of each project are created.
Managing changes and configurations to each iteration of a software project can be a nightmare without a central hub. Having the right requirements management process and tools in place helps to unify configuration and change management.
Many different developers can be involved in one software development project. If they aren't operating from a unified set of software requirements, you can end up with conflicting software versions. Redundancies like this can significantly slow down production time and inflate costs.
Collaboration
There are a large number of stakeholders in every project. Investors, development teams, project managers, and customers all have a vested interest in how a particular project performs.
Engineers formulating your list of software requirements, as well as QA team members, need to be able to work with customers.
To be effective, teams need to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery, welcome changes to requirements, and tune and adjust their behavior regularly. In addition, these teams need to be able to meet with key players face-to-face. The business side and IT side of your project team also need to be unified.
Agile requirements management
Agile development processes are changing the landscape of IT projects. The process revolves around user stories that get the end-users involved in the development process.
It can be a challenge for teams to transition to Agile processes. Besides realizing a deep-rooted cultural change, the success of any Agile transition depends on having the right processes and tools in place. If you're going to transition to Agile development, your tools should foster smooth collaboration, transparency in Agile's fast-moving environment, and your tools should automate change control as much as possible. Look for tools that have recorded artifact trails to increase traceability.
Compliance
In mission-critical industries, safety and the robust functioning of software is vital. In order to ensure software product quality, regulations and guidelines (either by national governments or international standardization agencies) are adopted.
Regulatory bodies are continuously updating and strengthening these standards to ensure safety, reliability, and security for everyday products. The strict nature and number of these regulations are only going to increase as time goes on. As a result, it will be more challenging for development teams to achieve compliance.
This is where collaboration is key. Teams will need to develop airtight product review and validation processes. Review workflows, process traceability, and documentation will all become increasingly important.