The Fast Forward MBA in Project Management, 6th Edition

CHAPTER 22Requirements: Describe the Solution Target

Amanda “Mandy” Dietz and Eric Verzuh

Mandy Dietz has written and facilitated courses for university and corporate audiences. Her focus is business analysis, process management, and project management. In her consulting practice, she has helped numerous organizations strengthen their requirements practices over the past 25 years.

INTRODUCTION

Project success—delivering the right product at the right time for the promised cost—is intimately tied to developing a clear agreement about the features and performance of the product or service being produced. Equally important is maintaining agreement on this product vision throughout the project and actually delivering it. The techniques and processes associated with developing this shared product vision and delivering on that promise comprise requirements development and management.

Despite this intimate relationship, developing and managing requirements is rarely considered a subset of project management. Rather, it is its own discipline that can be completely understood only in the context of what's being produced. For example, the exact processes and techniques for documenting the desired features and performance of an office building will differ from those associated with developing an accounting software package or a space shuttle.

Certain requirements principles transcend industries, so the framework in this chapter should be useful to everyone. However, since the projects ...