VOICES Project Toolkit
Just as laying a proper foundation makes a house strong,
establishing the proper requirements is the start of project
success. We asked practitioners: When it comes to require-
ments management, what’s your top technique?
Accurate
Requirements
the product. With agile, however, you generate user-centric requirements expressed from the user’s point of
view.
If we were creating a GPS traffic application for
smartphones, the traditional way to express a require-
ment may be written as: ‘The application will provide
the user the shortest route to their destination.’
In contrast, that same requirement using the
customer-centric agile approach would be written: ‘As a
commuter, I want to be shown the fastest route, so that
I can save time and fuel costs.’
These requirements emphasize who the consumer
(the ‘commuter’) of the requirement is, followed by the
business value of the requirement.
With agile methodologies, there is flexibility. The
consumer of the requirement can be the end user, an
engineer or even a test system.”
—Julio Calderon, PMP, assistant vice president, program
manager, Bank of Internet Federal Bank, San Diego,
California, USA
ALWAYS ASK QUESTIONS
I’ve found that one of the key errors in
requirements management is not digging
deep enough with questions to get at the
heart of the customer’s needs.
In my current role, I am tasked with building requirements documents for software implementations. I recommend using an iterative approach when possible. This
allows for the customer to review the tool and see it in
action before deciding on all requirements. Many people
don’t realize exactly what they need until they see it.
I struggled with requirements gathering for many
years. It took a lot of failing before I started to get the
hang of it and learned to ask lots of questions—to have
as many wireframes or images as possible, to tell a
story. Don’t ever make assumptions. Ask even seem-
ingly simple questions instead.”
—Molly Swenson, PMP, senior project manager, SAP (a PMI
Global Executive Council member), New York, New York, USA
REVISIT REQUIREMENTS OFTEN
Requirements management should be an
ongoing process. Requirements must be
consistently captured and monitored—
ADOPT THE USER’S PERSPECTIVE
In the last few years, agile approaches have
steadily entered the project management
realm. Agile is very well known for its
development sprints. However, just as important is the
way agile approaches requirements management. The
traditional way to express requirements is by describing
