Discussion on requirement management of software project

The most striking feature of software projects that distinguishes them from other projects is that they are not visible, unlike hardware purchases and construction, which are tangible things. While software projects are long before the system is delivered, customers are unable to perceive what the system is like. Therefore, the demand management is very important, according to the relevant statistical data analysis, software projects more than 90% of the reasons for failure is not to pay attention to demand or demand management do not do in place caused.
As an important content of software project management, demand management runs through the whole life cycle of project implementation. As the saying goes: The beginning of everything is difficult. As the first link of software development, the importance of demand is self-evident. There are many theories and books on the demand management in the market, but most of them stay in the theoretical level, the practice is not strong. This paper is mainly based on the experience of our previous projects, to carry out a number of requirements management aspects of the discussion. We can simply divide the requirement management of software project into three core contents: Requirement acquisition, requirement analysis and verification, and requirement change control.
(i) Demand acquisition
Requirements acquisition is the first process of software project requirements management, in which we need to use scientific methods and related project experience to help us to obtain demand. The core content of demand acquisition is to master the actual requirements of software projects through research, so as to guide the implementation of the whole project. The main methods of demand acquisition include: User interview, questionnaire survey, On-the-spot observation and brainstorming, etc. In the actual project operation process, relatively clear demand, we can use more fixed demand access, such as: Questionnaire survey. And for relatively vague requirements or users can not clearly describe what they need, we can use a more flexible way, such as: User interviews, on-site observation and so on.
The types of requirements mainly include: business requirements, user needs and functional requirements. In the process of demand acquisition, whichever method is used, we need to understand the user's real ideas from top to bottom or from bottom up. Business needs are mainly targeted at the client's senior leadership, we all know that the initiation, implementation, and eventual success of the project will depend to a large extent on the high-level leadership, we need to interview them, understand the top leadership of the company strategy, development direction, and more importantly, to get their expectations of the software system will be developed, And hope that the system in the solution of existing business problems, the company's overall strategy to support the expectations. Help us to better understand the macro concept of the system. After mastering the business needs, we need to research the middle managers, the core issue is to understand the macro-strategic objectives on the landing of this layer, or the target refinement and implementation of the middle tier their expectations of the software system and the actual requirements, they or hope that this system can bring work convenience, Or hope that the system can be refined management, and so on. But they are the specific business unit responsible for their own business and the system to promote the business, there is a more profound experience. Finally, we need to master the business needs, the user needs on the basis of the IT management department, the main operators of the needs of the investigation or according to our understanding of the needs of the system to refine the functional requirements, this demand is the lowest level of demand, but also a layer of landing process.
(ii) Demand analysis and validation
After acquiring the software project requirements, the next work is to analyze and verify the requirements, in the actual operation of the project, including: Requirements analysis modeling, requirements specifications and requirements review three large stage.
The requirement analysis modeling is to refine, analyze and scrutinize the information that has been collected, to establish a conceptual model for the system that the end user sees, to ensure that all stakeholders understand its meaning and to identify errors, omissions or deficiencies. Requirement analysis is the most important part of software project requirement management.
In the process of requirement analysis and modeling, in order to speed up the progress of the project, we often use the prototype method to analyze and model the demand, which is based on our experience and understanding of the basic needs of the users, and build a prototype system with Axure and other prototype design tools. In addition, we also need to use UML tools for use case analysis, use case description, etc., and eventually write the form of "Software Requirements specification."
Demand validation or demand review is an important means to measure output results in the demand phase, after the requirements analysis and modeling, the project stakeholders should organize the needs review meeting, invite relevant experts, external related units, etc. to conduct needs assessment, the results of the demand analysis of the requirements Specification, prototype system, etc. for review, and verify the results of the review to ensure that the requirements are not deviated from the user requirements, but also slightly higher than the user requirements.
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This article is from: 51Testing Software test Network