The Essential Guide toRequirements Management and Traceability
Chapters
- 1.Requirements Management
- Overview
- 1What is Requirements Management?
- 2Why do you need Requirements Management?
- 3Four Fundamentals of Requirements Management
- 4Adopting an Agile Approach to Requirements Management
- 5Conquering the 5 Biggest Challenges of Requirements Management
- 6Three Reasons You Need a Requirements Management Solution
- 2.Writing Requirements
- Overview
- 1Functional requirements examples and templates
- 2Product requirements document template and examples
- 3How to write system requirement specification (SRS) documents
- 4Adopting the EARS Notation to Improve Requirements Engineering
- 5Jama Connect Advisor™
- 6Frequently Asked Questions about the EARS Notation and Jama Connect Requirements Advisor
- 7How to Write an Effective Product Requirements Document
- 8Functional vs. Non-Functional Requirements
- 9What Are Non-Functional Requirements and How Do They Impact Product Development?
- 10Characteristics of Effective Software Requirements and Software Requirements Specifications (SRS)
- 118 Do’s and Don’ts for Writing Requirements
- 3.Requirements Gathering and Management Processes
- 4.Requirements Traceability
- Overview
- 1What is Traceability?
- 2Tracing Your Way to Success: The Crucial Role of Traceability in Modern Product and Systems Development
- 3What is Requirements Traceability and Why Does It Matter for Product Teams?
- 4How to Create and Use a Requirements Traceability Matrix
- 5Traceability Matrix 101: Why It’s Not the Ultimate Solution for Managing Requirements
- 6Live Traceability vs. After-the-Fact Traceability
- 7How to Overcome Organizational Barriers to Live Requirements Traceability
- 8需求跟踪,你缺少什么?
- 9Four Best Practices for Requirements Traceability
- 10Requirements Traceability: Links in the Chain
- 11What Are the Benefits of End-to-End Traceability During Product Development?
- 5.需求管理Tools and Software
- 6.Requirements Validation and Verification
- 7.Meeting Regulatory Compliance and Industry Standards
- Overview
- 1Understanding ISO Standards
- 2What is ISO 13485? Your Comprehensive Guide to Compliant Medical Device Manufacturing
- 3A Guide to Automotive Safety Integrity Levels (ASIL)
- 4What is DevSecOps? A Guide to Building Secure Software
- 5Compliance Management
- 6What is FMEA? Failure Modes and Effects Analysis
- 7What’s a Design History File, and How Are DHFs Used by Product Teams?
- 8.Project Management
- 9.Measuring Requirements
- 10.Systems Engineering
- Glossary
Requirements Traceability – What are you missing?
For systems engineers, business analysts, and product owners,requirementstraceability (the ability to trace requirementsto downstream development, test, verification, validation,and risk activities)is an unquestionedgood and an unquestionedneed.Traceabilityisrequiredtodemonstratecomplianceto relevant standards in industriessuch asmedical device,automotive,semiconductor,aerospace,andfinancial services.In addition to compliance requirements, traceability isquitehelpful to assess theimpact of changerequiredon all relevant requirements and related downstream activities.但最大的潜在价值is missed by many organizations.
After-the fact use cases
The two main use casesfor traceabilitynoted above are bothreactivetorequests: the need to demonstratestandardscomplianceto third parties and the need to analyze the impact of a changerequest.Bothuse cases view requirements as staticand passive. Requirements are documented andlinkscreatedto downstream artifactsin software, hardware,and electrical developmenttest and risk assessment—which are stored in a system. The system thenwaits until a request comesinfrom outsideto documentthata process has been followed or to identifywhich elements are impacted by a change. Bothuse cases reflectan after-the-fact mindset thatlimits the value that can be achieved from the effort put into establishing traceability.
Analogies to other business-criticalfunctions
To viewsomethingwe think we know well in a new light, itis often helpful to place itin adifferentcontext and look at itfroma fresh perspective.So,let’s give it a try andcompare traceability in the product development process to traceability in the new customer acquisition process.
For engineers,theseprocesses mayat first appear to be too disparate for an apt analogy, but at a fundamental level, they arequitesimilar. Both startwith a documentedvalue (requirement vs. opportunity) that must transition through multiple phasesand involve many other functions to reach the desired outcome (release vs. win)— and all sorts of things can go wrong along the way leading to delays, costs incurred,and failure.
The aspect I want to focus on ishowthese two processes are managed.In the sales process,the element of value(theopportunity)isliving—actively measured,analyzed,and tracked for exceptionson a daily basis.Thekey process metrics are definedwithranges for acceptable performance.Current processperformanceisautomatically calculated based onthe movement through stages of all opportunities.Alerts are raised for opportunities stuck ina process stage too long(relative toaverage dwell times)andpredictions are made about future period performance based onthe opportunities in the system.
In contrast, for most product development organizations,requirementtraceabilityis static andinafter-the-fact analysis and notliving—in the way opportunities are traced in sales as described above.To make requirement traceability living(likeasalesopportunity)traceability would require software-enabled best practices in the following areas:
- Process metrics must be defined
- Actual performance against process metrics must be captured
- Once standard metric performance is defined, current performance must be compared tothestandard
- Exceptions need to be defined
- Alerts need to be set upto notify when exceptions occur
- Learnings need to be incorporated into process improvement
Once these steps are takento improverequirementstraceability,then requirementsbecome living, not static,and performance improvement is possible: the risk of negative product outcomesisreduced,and process performanceisimproved; the product development process can then bedata-driven, measured,andmanagedlikeallotherbusiness-critical processes.Withoutmeasurement,there is no way to benchmark performance against other organizations.There is no way tolearn, no way to know,and no way to improve.
Better to stay in thedark?
There may be some that would prefer to keep the product development process shrouded in mystery andavoid data-driven analysis, measurement,and process performance improvement.There used to bechiefrevenueofficers (CROs)that felt the same way.It isextremely hardto find any currentCROswith that mindset.Those that can lead through data and drive performance improvements gain the support of leadership and elevate their careers.The same opportunity is now on the table for product leadershiptoturnrequirements traceabilityinto living requirementsin orderto reduce the risk of negative product outcomes and improve the performance oftheend-to-endproduct development process.
In This Webinar, Learn More About the High Cost of Poor Requirements Management
Traceability:Relationships between items to show evidence of requirement decomposition and verification coverage.
RELATED ARTICLE:Better Product Development: Five Tips for Traceability
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