CMMI - L 2 - Manage - Requirements Management

This is first Process Area (PA) of Level 2.

As we know each PA has set of goals and so the Requirement Management has one GOAL - Manage Requirement.

Manage Requirements

Requirements are managed and inconsistencies with project plans and work products are identified.

The purpose of Requirements Management is to establish a common understanding between the customer and the project team. This would also involve identifying inconsistencies between the requirements and project's plan and work products.

Requirements Management involves establishing and maintaining an agreement with the customer on the requirements for the software project. The requirements would include both technical and non technical requirements like performance. This agreement is referred to as the "system requirements allocated to the software."

To achieve this control, the project team reviews the initial and revised system requirements allocated to software to resolve issues before they are incorporated into the software project.

Whenever the system requirements allocated to software are changed, the affected software plans, work products, and activities are adjusted to remain consistent with the updated requirements. For this to happen, requirements and requirement changes are managed by documenting them, and maintaining traceability between requirements and all work products like design, test plans etc.

Apart from specific goals, each PA will have a set of generic goals on how the process area is institutionalized across the organization.

If we look at the various activities that are performed, the summary is as below:

- The software requirements are reviewed by the team, and the requirements are used as the basis for further planning.
- Traceability is established between requirements and other life cycles. Any changes to the requirements are reviewed. (Impact analysis, Change management process).

Impact of Requirement Change on the schedule and plan must be comprehended and managed.

"Please note that this process area does not talk about how requirements are gathered. This comes at Level 3 only."

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