• Table of Contents

Introduction

If you remember the figure way back in Lecture 2, a typical requirement engineering process has two main aspects: requirements development and management.

Figure 2.1 The requirement engineering activities.

Requirement management is separate from requirement development because it involves ongoing monitoring and control of the requirements. For reference, take a look at the figure below:

Figure 10.1 Requirement management.

<aside> <img src="/icons/map-pin_gray.svg" alt="/icons/map-pin_gray.svg" width="40px" /> To draw an analogy, we can compare requirement management to the sidebar in an n-layer architecture. A sidebar in an n-layer architecture can communicate with each layer and provide an overview of the system, requirement management can oversee the entire requirement engineering process and ensure that the requirements are being effectively managed and met.

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As the project progresses, it is natural for new requirements and expectations to emerge, and it is the job of requirement management to handle those changes efficiently.

Problems Due to Changing Requirement

One of the key challenges that can arise in software development projects is managing changing requirements. There are several problems that can occur:

• Requirements may change late in the development cycle without any assessment of their impact on the project, leading to delays or other issues.
• Outdated or unmatched requirements specifications can cause confusion and result in unnecessary rework.
• This can be particularly problematic if coding, test cases, or documentation have already been completed based on those requirements.

Overall, requirement management ensures that all project requirements are met while also effectively managing any changes or additions to those requirements.

Activities

The main goal of requirement management is to maintain the integrity and accuracy of expected requirements throughout the project, which include a list of activities.

Figure 10.2 Requirements management activities.

These activities involved can be categorized into the following four:

1. Change Control: Managing changes to agreed-upon requirements and baselines — e.g. an engineering change order (ECO) process.