Requirements Gathering and Tracking

Understanding Effort and Impact

The effort expended for this best practice will depend on your organization.  Like some software engineering practices, this does not require extended effort in learning but it does entail change in the organization.  It will also depend on the software process that your team employs.  For those following a strict agile process, you may depend more on your user stories and back log.  For those in regulated industries, you may already have a robust process.  In all situations, you and your client, even if your client is internal to the company, should agree on what you are building.

Learning

This section contains several books and articles that you can investigate.   For those of you who are in regulated industries and who must implement rigorous process, consider the following tools, books, and training

• “Writing Better Requirements” is a short, concise, and highly informative book.
• Review the session: “Practical Techniques for Gathering and Managing System Requirements”
• Evaluate NI Requirements Gateway
• Consider sitting for the Training Course:  Using LabVIEW and Test Automation in Regulated Markets

Practicing

This is one best practice that you simply start executing.  For each project, you may choose to refine the process. 

Executing

You will need to build alignment on your team. Here are some things to consider:

• Determine the extent to which you must have formal tracking processes.
• Determine if there are other teams or groups in your company that also need to align with this process change.
• Consider having members of the team review requirements for clarity and the ability to verify that the requirement can be verified.
• Consider having a process to manage change, potentially including the effort involved.
• Consider designing your test plan as you define requirements.