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Requirements Management

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by stephb

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I am looking for a good process for Requirements Management, tracing them to design, development and implementation. In short, to make sure all requirements are covered. I would appreciate all suggestions.
Also, are you using a specific tool? I have looked at rational, but this was too complex (and too costly) for my needs. I prefer a low cost solution.

Thanks in advance,
Stephan

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by denis a. bilas

Hi! We are using Rational RequisitePro for Requirements capture and Rational ClearQuest for subsequent tracking. It works great, but it takes some time to develop a good policy for using RequisitePro and to code the process into ClearQuest. There are also other tools similar to RequisitePro, but they are as expensive as it is.

It depends on the size of the project you are working on. If it is not more than 200 requirements, just use spreadsheet to capture them and track their status. Sortingby columns, which you find in Excel (e.g.) helps. To track bugs (and even tasks), use Bugzilla -- it's a free Perl script.

Also you should know that RM is a large thing. There is a lot about it besides tools.

First, a good Requirements Analysis policy is highly recommended. You should at least create templates for the FIRST project documents: it can be Vision, Meeting Minutes, Goal/feature model, etc. In analysis, do use graphical Use-Case models. Expand them into detailed textual scenarious once the diagrams are agreed upon with the customer.

In fact all that is rather simple once the team gets used to it.

Ok that's all for now, if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

by haris

Following are recomended books on Requirements Management

Managing Software Requirements
by D. Leffingwell and D. Widrig, Addison Wesley, 2000.
Managing Systems Requirements: Methods, Tools, and Cases
by Stephen J. Andriole, McGraw Hill, 1996

You will also find the Roger S Pressman's book's chapter 'Requirement Specifications' very useful. You can use the methods defined in this chapter.

I have listed below some tools that are available for managing requirements.

AxiomSys builds a detailed structured analysis model of the system using the Yourdon-DeMarco structured analysis method as well as providing full integration and comprehensive support for the Hatley-Pirbhai real time extensions and architecture modeling concepts.AxiomSys provides mechanisms to trace how and where each requirement is fulfilled, and validates the entire model for consistency and logical integrity.

The Business Analyst 2020 is software that enables users to capture client's system requirements using the requirements discovery session (RDS). The resulting documentation can be used directly as a specification to build a software solution.

DOORS (Dynamic Object Oriented Requirements System) is an Information Management and Traceability (IMT) tool. Requirements are handled within DOORS as discrete objects. Each requirement can be tagged with an unlimited number of attributes allowing easy selection of subsets of requirements for specialist tasks.

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