1CHAPTER ONE REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT IN A PROJECT MANAGEMENT CONTEXT

Project success is the result of proper planning and proper execution. Fundamental toproper planning is making sure that the work to be performed by the project is well understood and that the amount of work is compatible with available resources. Require-ments management is all about learning and documenting the work to be performed by the project, and ensuring compatibility with resources. A well-executed on-time project that does not meet customer needs is of no use to anybody. Requirements Requirements define the desired behavior of a system1 to be built by a development project. More formally, a requirement is an externally observable characteristic of a desired system. The two most important terms of this definition are externally observable and desired. Externally observable implies that a customer, user, or other stakeholder is able to determine if the eventual system meets the requirement by observing the system. Observation here could encompass using any of the five senses, as well as any kind of device or instrument. Next, a requirement must state something that is desired by some stakeholder of the system. Stakeholders include all classes of users, all classes of customers, development personnel, managers, marketing, product support personnel, and so on. It is not so easy to determine 1 A system is any group of interacting elements that together perform one or more functions. The elements could be electronic hardware, mechanical devices, software, people, and/or any physical materials