When I was a little girl, my teacher told our class that “Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance”. There are coarser versions of this bit of advice, but it is nevertheless true. SO, if you are starting a new requirements project, having a plan will help YOU to prevent poor performance, or at least to stave it off.
You will need a RMP. A Requirements Management Plan. Not a “rump” – try searching for THAT on the internet while looking for free stock photos for your blog post – the results can be quite shocking, and generally fall into three categories:
- beef rump roasts – yuck! I’m vegetarian
- canine rumps – generally cute
- human rumps – generally yucky
Nary a RMP in sight. But (no pun intended), I digress.
Top 6 RMP Chunks
If you’re trying to create a RMP, you should include these 6 task categories, at a minimum:
- Project Setup. Set up some project kickoff meetings, take time to explain your approach to requirements gathering to your project team, get your software tools set up.
- Project Scope Definition. Elicit and document business objectives, create problem statements, identify risks.
- Information Gathering. Dig up any and all existing documentation and read it. Identify actors and the roles they play, and set up meetings with them. Identify systems affected by the project, what those systems do and how they interact with each other. Identify data elements, how they are managed, and who uses them.
- Requirements Documenting. You know how to do that! 😉
- Requirements Review. Identify your document approvers, set up and hold review meetings. Get the approvers to sign off!
- Baselining. Establish the change control processes that your team will use, and baseline your set of deliverables. You mustn’t start changing things until you’ve got a baseline.
Once you’ve created your RMP, go publish it! Send it out to your project team. Give them updates when changes occur, and you’ll keep the team on track and greatly increase the chance that your project will be successful.
