Task: Manage Changing Requirements |
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Maintain consistency between requirements and corresponding project modules as changes occur over time. |
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Purpose
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To
identify changes needed to requirements
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To
update requirements in accordance with approved change requests
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To
maintain validity and consistency of requirements and other project work products
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To
understand the impact of requirement changes
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Relationships
Roles | Primary:
| Additional:
| Assisting:
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Inputs | Mandatory:
| Optional:
| External:
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Outputs |
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Main Description
This task describes how requirements changes are managed over time.
Changes might cause you to add, edit, or remove requirements. In order to keep a complete change history, you must
remove requirements by marking them as obsolete in the project, rather than physically deleting the requirements.
Transaction information is captured in the requirement repository for further reference. After the change, it is
necessary to re-assess the traceability, and ensure the validity and consistency across the project.
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Steps
Identify changes
Monitor changing needs and request changes as appropriate.
Over the lifetime of a project, requirements can change to address the changing needs of stakeholders, and to reflect
improved understanding as the project progresses. Also new requirements can be derived as a result of
technology and implementation decisions.
In less formal organizations, there will be some focal coordinating role that is responsible for ensuring that changes
are approved. In organizations that apply rigorous change management practices, approved change requests will come from
a Change Control Board (CCB).
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Analyze change impact
Support the change approval process by analyzing the impact of requested changes, as needed. This may be an
in-depth specification of changes to the wording of requirements, as well as assessing traceability and impact on other
requirements and other work products.
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Specify changes
Identify how approved change requests need to be reflected in the requirements, the attributes, and traceability.
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Record and update the changes
Add, update, or remove requirement text based on the approved changes. Update the revision number of the requirement,
and describe the changes made.
If you must delete a requirement, mark it as "obsolete" instead. This will preserve the change history of the
requirement for reference.
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Update affected requirements and work products
Examine the traceability links going to and from modified requirements to see if the changes made to the requirement
affect other requirements or work products. When the reassessment of traceability reveals that a change impacts other
requirements or other work products, communicate the change to the parties responsible for them. When there is
automated support for the reassessment, it is often possible to configure it to automatically generate notification.
The result of assessing the impact is that other requirements need to be changed as well. Those requirements must be
assessed in turn.
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Properties
Multiple Occurrences |  |
Event Driven |  |
Ongoing |  |
Optional |  |
Planned |  |
Repeatable |  |
More Information
Concepts |
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Guidelines |
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Tool Mentors |
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