Have you ever realized why most of the software development projects lead to failure? It is of no surprise that lack of proper change management processes and definition of mature requirements are the main causes. Majority of the practitioners of the IT sector are aware of this but creating a system of requirements management is a challenging job.

Importance of requirements management system

Requirement management requires effective and adequate change management. This effective management of change can take place only with the help of a requirement management tool. The main aim of this tool is not to prevent but to encourage the change. Requirements are essential to provide a high quality product. It becomes difficult to implement an effective requirements management in multi-layered and mission-critical application projects. Therefore, combination of processes and tools is required to support change management and requirement analysis.

Features that you should look for in managing requirement tool:

As far as requirement management systems are concerned, there is nothing like right set of features. This is because everything depends on the organization type and the ‘system type’ that you are planning to build. It also depends on the various other aspects like the ‘culture’ and the processes that will be followed. However, below mentioned are some of the shared features that should be common to all the requirement tools:

• It should be able to enter requirements, use stories and cases in an user friendly web interface
• Building the schedule for project development by deriving the details of the technical tasks from the requirements
• Should have the ability to associate acceptance test in order to allow testing of the features before completing the development.
• Can successfully make use of other visual tools for planning the requirement development like- Gantt charts, planning boards etc.
• Tracking the history of requirements and combined version mechanism
• It should be able to support feedbacks and time collaborations during validation of requirements
• It should be able to generate documents and reports that are essential to aid assistance to your business. There is no point of using any tool if it is unable to generate reports for managing change.
• Another important feature is customizable workflows. Requirements can be segregated into different kinds and every type should have its own customizable workflow. On basis of this, different permissions and operations can be accorded to each of the types

Conclusion

Using a requirement tool provides great support to the team members, development team as well as the project manager. RM platforms help in enhanced understanding of the scope of the project, helps in creating baselines and efficient utilization of resources.

James Montano