10 Rules for Requirements Management Mastery

Requirements management mastery is a process of ensuring that the goals of any project or endeavour are successfully realised, are timely and that waste, avoidable redundancy and “feature creep” are eliminated. Managing the requirements of any project throughout the lifecycle of that project is essential to save time, money, effort, resources and successfully arrive at the business goal.  For this reason, requirements management mastery must be a key focus of all projects.

Following the steps ahead, any project will stay on track, save money and deliver what the client needs as the process itself ensures that outcome. Requirements management mastery is a goal that your business will thrive from.

Rule One: Design the Requirements to be of Most Use

Ensure that all requirements derived from the client are SMART:

        1. Specific
        2. Measurable
        3. Attainable
        4. Realisable
        5. Traceable

 

Rule Two: Manage the Requirements

Identifying the user’s needs, through user’s needs statements which are then processed to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Traceable, are used to create user requirements, then system requirements should be developed from these user requirements. These ought to be linked to maintain full traceability and coverage throughout the project lifecycle and store all the requirements in a central requirements repository. Cradle is designed from the ground up to manage all requirements with full coverage and traceability, end-to-end, backwards and forwards through its unique transitive linking mechanism for full traceability and coverage from every requirement to every outcome, and from every outcome back to every requirement.

Rule Three: Ensure Constraints are Accounted for

Non functional and non system requirements such as for legal or regulatory compliance must be accounted for and this is useful for ensuring quality is maintained and indeed, built into the system.

Rule Four: Model Requirements

Various modelling tools (built into Cradle) are very useful for understanding requirements in a broader and more understandable way. It can reduce ambiguity and create a much better understanding of how requirements can be achieved.

Step 5: Test Requirements

Ensure that requirements can be tested, through test cases, tests, test results all linked transitively back to the requirements being tested. Cradle’s TEST module (Test, Execution & Recording (TER)) allows you to directly link Test Cases to your requirements, needs, or design elements. You can then define Test Plans and Test Executions to group and run these tests and the tool will record the Test Results against each Test Step.

Gathering requirements
Requirements management mastery

Rule Six: Be Aware of Business Needs

By analysing business needs, requirements can be optimised to ensure that essential stakeholders are made aware of opportunities to enhance the business and improve innovation.

Rule Seven: Ensure that Changes are Controlled

During any project lifecycle, changes occur which impact requirements. Having tools that manage those changes, tracks them through full traceability and coverage and notifies stakeholders of which parts of the project are impacted by those changes, gives the business a clear advantage, reducing errors, saving time and lots of money.

Rule Eight: Monitor and Track Metrics and Trends

Make use of Cradle to ensure that metrics are identified and learned from. Continuous improvement in requirements definitions and utility leads to better implementation.

Rule Nine: Keep a Repository of Good Requirements

Ensure that a repository of requirements is stored for future analysis and learning. These can be reused or used as templates in the future. Especially non-functional requirements relating to compliance with government or legal standards.

Rule Ten: Ensure that Requirements are Reused

Save time, money and effort by reusing requirements that are still useful. Why re-invent the wheel? Requirements that have been used before will hold useful lessons. Were they changed, amended? Why? What was learnt? Cradle’s Adaptations for reusability is very useful here.

 

 

Why is Requirements Management Essential for your Business?

Why is Requirements Management Essential for your Business?

Imagine you are renovating an old live-aboard boat. You have to ensure that the hull is sound and has no leaks. That the ballast is in the correct place to keep the vessel balanced, you need to upgrade the plumbing, the electric circuits, the gas installations, all whilst designing the living quarters, the saloon, the galley, bathroom and bedrooms.

There are many interesting videos on YouTube created by people doing precisely that and what stands out most, is that none of their original plans survive first contact with reality. Discovering that the constraints of the boat safety certificate means that they must have a specific number of brackets per foot for gas pipelines, or cost of materials suddenly rising threefold mid-renovation, or discovering that fittings simply will not fit where they require them, means mid refit changes to their plans. Buying a water pump for waste water, only to discover the inlet and outlet are different sizes, requires buying new adapters or pipes.  Often this means waiting longer for parts to be delivered before a task can be completed and the budget rising.

Each of the areas of the boat to be renovated is a requirement. How many leisure batteries do you need? Without doing a power audit, and knowing the full wattage of all your electrical equipment, that is guesswork. You do not want to be out on a month’s cruise, only to discover that your washing machine will not work due to inadequate electrical supply, so creating a set of fully researched requirements, and how those requirements will be met, is essential to a successful renovation.

Narrowboat Cruising
Requirements Management for Narrowboat Cruising

The same problems arise when renovating cars, houses or anything that requires a multitude of interconnecting and inter-dependent parts. Often A cannot be completed until B is completed, then whilst completing B one discovers that C, D and E are needed too, but they cannot be completed until A is completed. Around in circles one goes, spending ever more time and money until the project fails and has to be sold off for someone else to attempt to fix it.

Achieving and maintaining control over all the requirements is even more essential in business. Every project your business undertakes, requires analysis, design, implementation and testing phases. Without having a firm understanding of each and every requirement within that analysis, unplanned, forced changes will have a dramatic effect upon timescales, deliverability, functionality and costs. It can be the difference between a successful project and total failure.

The cost of a project requires a deep, granular level of understanding of exactly, in detail, every requirement of that project. It is necessary to know how each requirement will be satisfied and implemented, how much it will cost, how long it will take and a risk register for if any of those requirements cannot be met within the project plan. It also requires knowledge of how such a requirement can be changed during the project, what impact that change will have upon other parts of the project and how much time and money it requires to implement that change.

Requirements Management is the Key to Unlocking Success in all Projects

Requirements management is the key to unlocking success in all projects.
Requirements management is the key to unlocking success in all projects.

Not only does having a full requirements management system allow your business to ensure that all requirements are identified, assessed, agreed, costed, time allocated, tested, implemented, tested again and signed off, it also gives you magical powers when changes to requirements are forced upon you. A fully integrated requirements management plan within a project plan, that includes full coverage and traceability, backwards and forwards, with transitive linking, gives you magical powers to see, at any point in the full project, the status of all requirements at any point in time, but which functions, objects or other parts of the project have crept in, for which there is no requirement at all, exposing the project to unnecessary risk, cost and problems. Why are you spending time and money on something that is not required?

But the client keeps changing their mind…  It is a very common problem. As a project progresses, the client comes back with changes. Regulations change, requirements change, personnel change. This cannot be prevented, sadly, but what this means is that you have an opportunity to see very quickly what impacts such changes will have upon all areas of the project.

How can someone magically know which parts of a project are impacted with changes in requirements?

Cradle provides a fully integrated requirements management system within a full lifecycle product. One product that supports your entire systems engineering lifecycle. Cradle covers everything from initial requirements gathering, through analysis, design, testing, implementation with full baselining. Cradle is designed to control many variants and projects, with full traceability and coverage, end-to-end with unique transitive linking. This grants you full and complete control over every requirement at every point in the project and gifts you the ability to see how every part of the project can link back to any requirement, and if any requirement changes, to see what effects that has on other parts of the project and to see if any part of your project is NOT linked to any requirement and is therefore redundant effort and expense.

3SL Cradle - From Concept to Creation
3SL Cradle

Always in control, always on top of every part of your project at all times.  Do not be the person who has to sell up, because requirements spiraled out of control and the project failed.

March 2022 – Newsletter

Cn yuo raed this sentnce?

Most English native readers will understand the text above. Although we must admit it is fairly atrocious.  We are so used to reading context, that even when letters are missing or transposed we still understand. Sometimes [sic ]don’t even notice the errors. We have come acustomed [sic] to our browsers and text document processors telling us the spelling of a word is not recognised. However, unless there is some form of context processing too, a smelling [sic] mistake would get through even if a sbelling [sic] mistake was highlighted.

Proof

EV Charging point too low based on Photo by Ed Harvey from Pexels
1m not 1mm high

March the 8th recognised proof reading day, which may be a delight for the pedants among or is that amongst us. However, it does highlight the importance of peer review.  Proof reading is generally defined as “a process of finding and correcting textual mistakes before it is published” Elements that are easily overlooked when you read information back to yourself are often picked out faster by another. You “know” what you intended to write, and the human brain is very good at telling you that’s what is on the page.

Typos

It may be blatantly obvious you meant the EV socket was to be placed 1m from the floor but that extra ‘m‘ that remained in your text was a typo. Now no one can plug their car into the socket that is 1mm from the floor. You would hope the contractor would question this. However, not all errors are as obvious, incorrectly specifying a tolerance of 0.01mm or 0.1mm could either mean some costly but unnecessary machining, or components that don’t fit depending on the use case.   Language semantics can also get in the way of clear communication. Peers are likely to question whether you really wanted to separate those who may consider cannibalism;  “To avoid smells, the train buffet service should segregate eating passengers”. Whilst in reality it is unlikely to be misconstrued, it may show a less than professional approach to your stakeholders especially in a presentation  or final review.

Discussions

In Cradle we have covered the benefits of reviews and formal base-lining. However we also advocate the use of Discussions as a method of reviewing and recording comments and notes.

Checkers

Cradle supports a Conformance Checker to examine the correctness of requirements against a set of language / semantic checks. If you have ToolSuite you can also access a SpellChecker to examine your item’s text.

Training

Cradle Online Training
Online Cradle Training

Don’t forget to book to ensure your place on the courses in the 2022 Public training course calendar  . If you have questions or want tailored or on-site courses please contact salesdetails@threesl.com

ISO9001

UKAS ISO9001 Mark 3SL Certificate 16926 (Thumb)
3SL Certificate Number 16926 ISO 9001

3SL are proud to announce their third year recertification for ISO9001. The team working with the audit  said we passed with flying colours and there were no non-conformances. This is a testimony to all who have helped throughout the year improving and recording our processes.

The ISO says of the scheme

ISO 9001 sets out the criteria for a quality management system and is the only standard in the family that can be certified to (although this is not a requirement). It can be used by any organization, large or small, regardless of its field of activity. In fact, there are over one million companies and organizations in over 170 countries certified to ISO 9001.
This standard is based on a number of quality management principles including a strong customer focus, the motivation and implication of top management, the process approach and continual improvement. These principles are explained in more detail in ISO’s quality management principles. Using ISO 9001 helps ensure that customers get consistent, good-quality products and services, which in turn brings many business benefits.”[1]

Social Media

Twitter

ZF Group Tweet Feb 2022 Torque
ZF Group Tweet Feb 2022

We looked at the steep increase ZF Group have seen in torques that generation chains need to handle as wind turbines increase in size.

We also decided whilst there is a time for pancakes the time line of cooking them may not be suited to SysML modelling 😉

YouTube

Cradle Frame Storage mechanisms
Frame Data Storage

Did you know you can store your data in Cradle in several ways? In the database, in a file, as a reference or retrieve it by command? Why not take a peek at the possibilities.

 

 

 


[1]The ISO9000 scheme

Updated 31/03/2022 – UKAS Logo latest DESIGN