What Is Requirements Management - IBM

2/16/2021 What is Requirements Management | IBM
What is requirements management?

Why are good engineering requirements important to software and product
development? Clear, concise, error-free requirements help engineering teams
detect errors early, reducing project cost and risk.
How do you avoid errors in engineering

requirements?
The purpose of requirements management is to ensure product development goals are

successfully met. It is a set of techniques for documenting, analyzing, prioritizing, and
agreeing on requirements so that engineering teams always have current and approved
requirements. Requirements management provides a way to avoid errors by keeping
track of changes in requirements and fostering communication with stakeholders from
the start of a project throughout the engineering lifecycle.
https://www.ibm.com/topics/what-is-requirements-management 1/13
The value of requirements management
The Internet of Things (IoT) is changing not only the way products work, but their design
and development. Products are continuously becoming more complex with more lines of
code and additional software — some of which allow for even greater connectivity. With
requirements management, you can overcome the complexity and interdependencies
that exist in today’s engineering lifecycles to streamline product development and
accelerate deployment.
Issues in requirements management are often cited as major causes of project failures.
Having inadequately defined requirements can result in scope creep, project delays, cost
overruns, and poor product quality that does not meet customer needs and safety
requirements.
Having a requirements management plan is critical to the success of a project because it

enables engineering teams to control the scope and direct the product development
lifecycle. Requirements management software provides the tools for you to execute that
plan, helping to reduce costs, accelerate time to market and improve quality control.
 Watch the video (02:22)
Requirements management components
Requirements management plan (RMP)
A requirements management plan (RMP) helps explain how you will receive, analyze,
document and manage all of the requirements within a project. The plan usually covers
everything from initial information gathering of the high-level project to more detailed
product requirements that could be gathered throughout the lifecycle of a project. Key
items to define in a requirements management plan are the project overview,
requirements gathering process, roles and responsibilities, tools, and traceability.
Requirements management process
When looking for requirements management tools, there are a few key features to look
for.
A typical requirements management process complements the systems engineering V

model through these steps:
• Collect initial requirements from stakeholders
• Analyze requirements
• Define and record requirements
• Prioritize requirements
• Agree on and approve requirements
• Trace requirements to work items
• Query stakeholders after implementation on needed changes to requirements
• Utilize test management to verify and validate system requirements
• Assess impact of changes
• Revise requirements
• Document changes
By following these steps, engineering teams are able to harness the complexity inherent
in developing smart connected products. Using a requirements management solution
helps to streamline the process so you can optimize your speed to market and expand
your opportunities while improving quality.
Digital requirements management
Digital requirements management is a beneficial way to capture, trace, analyze and

manage requirements changes. Digital management ensures changes are tracked in a
secure, central location, and it allows for strengthened collaboration between team
members. Increased transparency minimizes duplicate work and enhances agility while
helping to ensure requirements adhere to standards and compliance.
Requirements attributes
In order to be considered a “good” requirement, a requirement should have certain

characteristics, which include being:
• Specific
• Testable
• Clear and concise
• Accurate
• Understandable
• Feasible and realistic
• Necessary
Sets of requirements should also be evaluated and should be consistent and

nonredundant.
 Watch the video (02:22)
Benefits of requirements management
Some of the benefits of requirements management include:
• Lower cost of development across the lifecycle
• Fewer defects
• Minimized risk for safety-critical products
• Faster delivery
• Reusability
• Traceability
• Requirements being tied to test cases
• Global configuration management
Who is responsible for requirements management?
The product manager is typically responsible for curating and defining requirements.
However, requirements can be generated by any stakeholder, including customers,
partners, sales, support, management, engineering, operations and product team
members. Constant communication is necessary to ensure the engineering team
understands changing priorities.
Benefits of digital requirements management
Engineering requirements management software enables you to capture, trace, analyze and
manage changes to requirements in a secure, central and accessible location. This
strengthens collaboration, increases transparency and traceability, minimizes rework, and
expands usability. A digital solution also enhances project agility while making it easier to
adhere to standards and maintain regulation compliance.
There are several benefits to using digital requirements management:
• Live collaboration: Work in real time, anywhere. Your team members can share
information in and between documents, wherever they are located.
• Reuse: Use the same requirement in multiple places without having to redefine it. You
can create baselines to identify the state of a requirement in real time to reduce the
occurrence of user errors.
• Traceability: Maintain a full history of changes in requirements so you can respond

quickly to audits. Your team can see what changed, who changed it and when it
changed.
• Consistency: Organize relevant information logically and easily in a way your team and
stakeholders understand. You can sort requirements by priority, risk, status and
category.

Best practices for requirements management
Your products are only as good as the requirements that drive them. For systems
engineers to manage the growing complexity of connected products, they need better
visibility into changes, deeper insight into data and shared tools for global collaboration.
Requirements traceability
Link individual artifacts to test cases for full visibility of changes in engineering
requirements as they happen. Capture all annotations, maintain them and make them easily
accessible.
Variant management
Digitally manage the entire version and variant process while monitoring the progression of
the system through a shared dashboard. Store data in a central location and present it in
document format.
Engineering compliance
Incorporate industry standards and regulations into your requirements to achieve
compliance early on. Building compliance into the end-to-end engineering lifecycle makes
achieving compliance less complex.
Agile management
Streamline engineering processes to enable global collaboration and the reality of a single
source of truth. Build confidence in the teams doing the work by showing them the value of
their efforts in real time.
Get the Agile Development Guide
How can AI help with requirements management?
Through the use of AI, engineering teams can more easily flag poorly written, incomplete
and ambiguous requirements while receiving real-time coaching on how to improve
them. Watson AI scores requirements based on quality indicators and will present
suggestions that can make them more clear, consistent and complete. By adding AI to
your requirements management strategy, you can strengthen the quality of your
requirements while reducing errors and costs.
02:22
Resources
Bringing AI to Requirements Management

IBM is bringing the power of Watson™ artificial intelligence to help address the need for
getting requirements right the first time.
 Learn about requirements management and AI
Improve requirements quality by integrating AI to automate simple

tasks
Detecting errors in requirements early in a project can help avoid costly rework and delays.
By infusing AI into the requirements development phase, teams can spot quality issues
right away and correct them before it’s too late.
 Learn how AI can improve requirements management
New ways of working can actually accelerate your team’s productivity

To help address productivity challenges that engineering and product development teams
face, IBM is responding with a new solution: IBM Engineering Requirements Management
DOORS Next with Quality Assistant, a SaaS solution.
 Learn how to accelerate your team’s productivity
Adopt an end-to-end approach to product development

As products become increasingly complex, the tools needed to design and develop them
also become more complex. By integrating stages of the engineering lifecycle, from
requirements to modeling and testing, teams can improve product quality and time to
market.
 Get the latest updates in engineering lifecycle management
Comparison of DOORS and DOORS Next

IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS® and IBM Engineering Requirements
Management DOORS Next are requirements management products with many similar
capabilities. However, the products offer different implementations and strategic
opportunities for requirements analysts and design, development and test teams.
 Compare DOORS and DOORS Next
IBM solutions
Systems Engineering Requirements Management

For systems engineers to manage the growing complexity of connected products, they need
better visibility into changes, deeper insight into data and shared tools for global
collaboration.
 Explore Systems Engineering Requirements Management
IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next

IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next provides a scalable solution to
optimize communication and collaboration among teams and stakeholders for the
verification of requirements.
 Explore the IBM requirements management product
IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Family

IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Family is a requirements management
application for optimizing requirements communication, collaboration and verification
throughout your organization and supply chain.
 Explore the IBM requirements management solution
IBM Engineering Requirements Quality Assistant

Use the power of Watson AI to improve the quality of project requirements as you write
them. Now bundled with IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS® Next SaaS
version.
 Explore IBM Engineering Requirements Quality Assistant

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2/16/2021 What is Requirements Management | IBM

What is requirements management?

How do you avoid errors in engineering

The purpose of requirements management is to ensure product development goals are

The value of requirements management

Having a requirements management plan is critical to the success of a project because it

 Watch the video (02:22)

Requirements management components

Requirements management plan (RMP)

Requirements management process

A typical requirements management process complements the systems engineering V

• Collect initial requirements from stakeholders

• Deﬁne and record requirements

• Agree on and approve requirements

• Trace requirements to work items

• Query stakeholders after implementation on needed changes to requirements

• Utilize test management to verify and validate system requirements

• Assess impact of changes

Digital requirements management

Digital requirements management is a beneﬁcial way to capture, trace, analyze and

In order to be considered a “good” requirement, a requirement should have certain

• Clear and concise

• Feasible and realistic

Sets of requirements should also be evaluated and should be consistent and

 Watch the video (02:22)

Beneﬁts of requirements management

Some of the beneﬁts of requirements management include:

• Lower cost of development across the lifecycle

• Minimized risk for safety-critical products

• Requirements being tied to test cases

• Global conﬁguration management

Who is responsible for requirements management?

Beneﬁts of digital requirements management

There are several beneﬁts to using digital requirements management:

• Traceability: Maintain a full history of changes in requirements so you can respond

Best practices for requirements management

Get the Agile Development Guide

How can AI help with requirements management?

Bringing AI to Requirements Management

 Learn about requirements management and AI

Improve requirements quality by integrating AI to automate simple

 Learn how AI can improve requirements management

New ways of working can actually accelerate your team’s productivity

 Learn how to accelerate your team’s productivity

Adopt an end-to-end approach to product development

 Get the latest updates in engineering lifecycle management

Comparison of DOORS and DOORS Next

 Compare DOORS and DOORS Next

Systems Engineering Requirements Management

 Explore Systems Engineering Requirements Management

IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Next

 Explore the IBM requirements management product

IBM Engineering Requirements Management DOORS Family

 Explore the IBM requirements management solution

IBM Engineering Requirements Quality Assistant

 Explore IBM Engineering Requirements Quality Assistant

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