Guideline: Requirements Impact Analysis
This guideline helps you assess the impact of new requirements or changes to requirements.
Relationships
Main Description

When a new requirement or requirement change is introduced, you must analyze its impact to determine if it will introduce conflicts with other requirements or risk to the project.

Consider the following when assessing requirements impact:

  • Are there any conflicts with the approved requirements, proposed requirements or current work products?
    •  Review the approved requirements, including system-wide requirements and derived requirements. Check the architecture, design, test cases, interfaces, supporting materials and build sets to identify any issues. Remember to review the proposed but not yet approved requirements. Confirm there are no conflicts with the proposed change. If conflicts or issues are identified, review with stakeholders to resolve.
  • Determine risks and consequences of the proposed change. Make sure the team understands the consequences of not making the change, and any risks that must be mitigated if the new requirement or change is approved.
  • How will the requirement affect supporting activities or strategies? (e.g. acquisition or maintenance)
  • When a new requirement is proposed that significantly increases project scope, it is beneficial to determine the impact to resource utilization, schedule, and cost. If further exploration required, conduct trade-off analysis, cost-benefit analysis, or prototyping.

As new requirements are introduced, inform all stakeholders to confirm they are aware of and understand the proposed changes. They can help with impact analysis based upon their specific area of expertise.