Documenting and Managing Requirements

As requirements are captured, category information should be recorded as requirements attributes. Categories assigned to requirements assist in filtering requirements for analysis purposes. The context of the project will determine how and to what extent requirements are organized into categories. A primary goal of categorizing requirements is to facilitate analysis. Some organizations may have standard requirements categories to use while other use project-specific categorization. Categorization supports quick assessment of the impact of proposed changes and supports traceability for downstream work efforts, such as design and testing, helping to guide activities.

Use categories that make sense to the project where possible. For example, a development effort that involves multiple, integrated applications may want to include a category for the individual application the requirement applies to. Then, you can easily examine only those requirements associated with the single application when analyzing work efforts, costs, etc. For a small, self-contained application project, this category would not add any value. Regardless of what categories are used, they should provide an organized way to facilitate analysis, minimize development rework and ensure that the objectives for the project are delivered.