Project Cycle Optimisation™
Principle 1: Project Requirements
Gathering accurate requirements at the beginning of any project is key to a successful outcome. Misinterpretation or a lack of detail at this stage is one of the primary causes of project failure, delays and budget overruns.
The following points are useful to consider and provide a checklist when embarking on the initial research for a new project:
- Ensure that a clear definition of what is to be achieved is fully understood, documented and reviewed by stakeholders.
- Always remember that a problem/challenge that is well defined is already half solved. To achieve this comprehensive view you must utilise a structured “Requirements Management Process”.
- Be aware that your requirements will be used at every stage and in every corner of the project - by almost all possible roles. They must be absolutely clear and unambiguous, written with specific emphasis for each team section.
- All requirements must be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realisable and Traceable
- Requirements must also be clearly connected to your business needs. Always keep asking, “Why is it needed and who are the beneficiaries?”
- Recognise that requirements are the foundation stone of the project, therefore they must go through a formal process of review and acceptance.
- Ensure that your business analysts are proficient in the business and understand the different techniques for capturing and managing the requirements. Requirements capturing should not be left to your developers unless they are equally skilled in both roles.
- Acknowledge and adopt a mentality of, “Good quality requirements will enable realistic and accurate project estimates”.
- Always bear in mind that well managed and well captured requirements will create smooth transition to the technical analysis and design stages without exposing gaps between the features and their implementation.
- Requirements should not be captured and communicated in English (text) only, but must also be supported by diagram and visual techniques such as UML to remove ambiguity.
