Reviewing Requirements

When the requirements analysis has been completed and the requirements have been organized, then three types of reviews need to be conducted:

- Peer reviews

- Management reviews

- Customer reviews

Peer Review

Peer review is made up of senior-level system designers and testers, preferably those who have had little or no involvement in the definition and analysis of the requirements for this project. They bring the objectivity needed at this point to identify ambiguous requirements, nontestable requirements and potential risks, and to make recommendations for imp rovement in the documentation of the requirements. Using the insight gained from the peer review, the system development team should get additional information from the customer as needed to develop corrections. When the proposed corrections have been developed, a management review should be conducted.

Management Review

Management review is the formal presentation of the requirements in terms of budget, schedule, and risks for the project. Executives, senior managers, marketing and account representatives, and quality assurance specialists need to participate in this review. The review itself should be structured to ensure that the output from it results in firm commitments to the creation and implementation of the detailed project plan for meeting the requirements. If this commitment is not strong at this point, it is an indication that one or more of the requirements needs to be further assessed for feasibility within the defined scope of the project budget and schedule. This assessment must be made with the customer to achieve consensus on the requirements that will be met by the proposed system. When management has reviewed the requirements list and all modifications and adjustments have been made, a formal customer review should be scheduled and conducted.

Customer Review

Customer review should include the management review counterparts on the customer side, the customer project team, the development project team, and full quality assurance representation. The purpose of this review is to finalize the requirements list. This is accomplished by presenting the fully analyzed requirements list, presenting and explaining the differences between the requirements list and the initial wish list the customer presented, and providing the documentation that supports the information presented. The customer review should result in a requirements list that clearly states what the system will do, how it basically will operate, and what users can expect in terms of usability, ergonomics, and learning curves. At the conclusion of the customer review, all of the players who have a stake in the system development effort should be in agreement about what the project, system, and subsystem requirements are. The requirements list thus is finalized and baselined to ensure control of the requirements throughout the life of the project.