Project Management Studies carried out over the last 20 years like the Standish Group study of 1995 - 1996, have consistently shown that the most common cause of project failure is poor or ineffective management of requirements.

If requirements cannot be captured in unambiguous language, then the probability is that the interpretation of the requirements by the development team will not meet the original expectations of the users.

This gives rise to the famous mismatch between what the user originally wanted and what they are delivered by the project team.

Also, if the requirements as documented are not mapped back to the original project objectives, then there is a strong possibility that the project will fail to deliver the business outcomes on which the business case was developed.  

In a study published in 1995 and 1996 based on a survey of many projects, successful and unsuccessful, the importance of effective requirements management in the successful outcome of projects was clearly illustrated.

"Incomplete requirements" was stated as the leading reason for project failure in 13.1% of project failures in the study.  Another major reason stated for project failures was "Changing requirements / specification" in a further 8.7% of failed projects.  This amounted to a total of some 21.8% of project failures directly relating to requirements management.

The inverse of this was what was reported as the major project success factors as reported in the same study.  "Clear statement of requirements" was reported as the third major reason for project success in 13.0% of the projects in the study.   

So clearly, as the study emphasised, effective Requirements Management is an integral and critical part of successful project management.  Managing requirements effectively helps to ensure that the final deliverable meets the customer requirements.

Scope Management is a fundamental aspect of project management, but it is impossible to manage scope effectively if you do not understand the business requirements and the link between the requirements and the stated business outcome / benefits of the project.

Requirements Management then is the process of capturing the requirements of the customer in clear and unambiguous language, and then translating these into a solution which meets those requirements.  

So what are the key aspects of effective Requirements Management?  

The activities listed below are the suggested steps to follow to ensure that there is effective end-to-end Requirements Management for the project.

1. Requirements Capture and Documentation
2. Requirements Prioritisation
3. Requirements Review and Approval
4. Solution Design
5. Mapping of Solution Design back to Requirements via a Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM)
6. Solution Design and RTM Review and Approval
7. Solution Specification Development
8. Mapping of Solution Specification back to Requirements via update to RTM
9. Solution Specification Review and Approval incorporating a review of the updated RTM
10. Preparation of Test Objectives based on the Requirements
11. Preparation of Test Cases based on Requirements, Solution Design and Solution Specifications
12. Review of scope changes (either additions or de-scopes) to determine the impact on the business outcome/benefits.

Requirements Management incorporates the capture and documentation of the requirements and the development of a solution that fulfils the requirements, and as such is a process / methodology for developing and defining the detailed project scope.  

Effective Requirements Management includes the following:

• Tracking requirements status
• Managing changes to requirements including versions of requirements specifications
• Tracing individual requirements to business benefits, proposed solution and test plans and test cases.

It is important to understand that Requirements Management is not something which only happens at the beginning of the project, but is an ongoing process over the life of the project, linking and mapping and linking the originally established business benefits, to the documented requirements, the solution, and the testing effort to ensure that the project outcome satisfies the original business objective for the project.

The objective of Requirements Management is to ensure that the project team  focuses on achieving the business outcome as agreed throughout the course of the project. Any changes to the scope of the project can be readily measured in terms of impact to the business outcomes/benefits.