Level 2 - Requirements Management |
Requirements Managementa key process area for level 2: RepeatableThe purpose of Requirements Management is to establish a common understanding between the customer and the software project of the customer's requirements that will be addressed by the software project. Requirements Management involves establishing and maintaining an agreement with the customer on the requirements for the software project. This agreement is referred to as the "system requirements allocated to the software." The "customer" may be interpreted as the system engineering group, the marketing group, another internal organization, or an external customer. The agreement covers both the technical and nontechnical (e.g., delivery dates) requirements. The agreement forms the basis for estimating, planning, performing, and tracking the software project's activities throughout the software life cycle. The allocation of the system requirements to software, hardware, and other system components (e.g., humans) may be performed by a group external to the software engineering group (e.g., the system engineering group), and the software engineering group may have no direct control of this allocation. Within the constraints of the project, the software engineering group takes appropriate steps to ensure that the system requirements allocated to software, which they are responsible for addressing, are documented and controlled. To achieve this control, the software engineering group reviews the initial and revised system requirements allocated to software to resolve issues before they are incorporated into the software project. Whenever the system requirements allocated to software are changed, the affected software plans, work products, and activities are adjusted to remain consistent with the updated requirements. GoalsGoal 1System requirements allocated to software are controlled to establish a baseline for software engineering and management use.
Goal 2Software plans, products, and activities are kept consistent with the system requirements allocated to software.
Commitment to performCommitment 1 -- The project follows a written organizational policy for managing the system requirements allocated to software.The system requirements allocated to the software are referred to as "allocated requirements" in these practices. The allocated requirements are the subset of the system requirements that are to be implemented in the software components of the system. The allocated requirements are a primary input to the software development plan. Software requirements analysis elaborates and refines the allocated requirements and results in software requirements which are documented.
This policy typically specifies that:
Ability to performAbility 1 -- For each project, responsibility is established for analyzing the system requirements and allocating them to hardware, software, and other system components.Analysis and allocation of the system requirements is not the responsibility of the software engineering group, but is a prerequisite for their work.
This responsibility covers:
Ability 2 -- The allocated requirements are documented.The allocated requirements include:
Ability 3 -- Adequate resources and funding are provided for managing the allocated requirements.
Ability 4 -- Members of the software engineering group and other software-related groups are trained to perform their requirements management activities.Examples of training include:
Activities performedActivity 1 -- The software engineering group reviews the allocated requirements before they are incorporated into the software project.
Activity 2 -- The software engineering group uses the allocated requirements as the basis for software plans, work products, and activities.The allocated requirements:
Activity 3 -- Changes to the allocated requirements are reviewed and incorporated into the software project.
Measurement and analysisMeasurement 1 -- Measurements are made and used to determine the status of the activities for managing the allocated requirements.Examples of measurements include:
Verifying implementationVerification 1 -- The activities for managing the allocated requirements are reviewed with senior management on a periodic basis.The primary purpose of periodic reviews by senior management is to provide awareness of and insight into software process activities at an appropriate level of abstraction and in a timely manner. The time between reviews should meet the needs of the organization and may be lengthy, as long as adequate mechanisms for exception reporting are available.
Refer to Verification 1 of the Software Project Tracking and Oversight key process area for practices covering the typical content of senior management oversight reviews.
Verification 2 -- The activities for managing the allocated requirements are reviewed with the project manager on both a periodic and event-driven basis.Refer to Verification 2 of the Software Project Tracking and Oversight key process area for practices covering the typical content of project management oversight reviews.
Verification 3 -- The software quality assurance group reviews and/or audits the activities and work products for managing the allocated requirements and reports the results.Refer to the Software Quality Assurance key process area.
At a minimum, these reviews and/or audits verify that:
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