Requirements Elicitation

It is absolutely impossible to create the scope of the project without knowing what the project and therefore the stakeholders need. If we decide to start a business, if we are going to deliver a product to a customer, one of the first things we need to do will always be collecting requirements. In this way, we will be more dominant in the processes that we need to do, prioritize, speed up or improve quality.

Failure to adequately collect stakeholder requirements related to the project, identifying incorrect requirements, and missing important requirements are among the reasons for the failure of the projects.

Therefore, in predictive approaches, it is essential that the requirements are collected with precision in order to create a logical scope statement that will not undergo changes and shifts. In doing so, the project manager has the right to decide on the necessary tools and techniques using well-known tools and techniques such as brainstorming, focus groups, benchmarking

However, there are much more ways to collect requirements than using these tools and techniques. Many times analyzing data, measurement, monitoring and controlling processes, feedbacks, and endless methods can give us hints about the requirements. Therefore, the word of elicitation is used here instead of collecting. It is a vital part of the delivery performance domain.

Requirements of stakeholders should be documented well and the agreement of stakeholders should be granted. Any barriers of communication in case of elicitation of requirements can be catastrophic to the project outcome and earned value. So there are some criteria of requirements documentation. First of all it should be clearly documented, we need to avoid excessive use of words, we need to be direct to the point. There should be ways to verify if we met the requirement or not. So they need to be measurable also. The documented requirements should be consistent and traceable.

What are evolving requirements?

It is a new concept that we come across especially in iterative, incremental, or adaptive development approaches. Sometimes stakeholders may not clearly define their requirements, they may want to experience them beforehand, or the requirements may not be obvious to be predicted before. Or new environment that emerged around the project may have effects changing the requirements. These are called evolving requirements.

Collect Requirements Process in PMBOK 6

Just like every person has a variety of requirements about their life, job, education, etc. projects have their own requirements as well. These requirements should be collected and managed closely in the responsibility of the project manager and it is also a very important aspect of understanding the essence of the PMP Certificate Exam.

In this process, we're going to learn how to collect, trace and analyze requirements. How to manage stakeholders' needs to meet the project objectives. Collect requirements process gives us deep details on what exactly needs to be done to achieve the project goals. For instance, if we are producing a new table model, this table has to be durable against water. If not durable, it means you are missing one of the key requirements. This is an example of a quality requirement. A requirement can also be a business process, your customer may demand an additional safety requirement, or this may be stemmed from a legal procedure.

In order to collect detailed requirements, we may have to communicate with the relevant stakeholders, collect information, analyze information, and then freeze the detailed scope. These requirements become the basis for defining the product scope and the project scope. While the product scope means the features of the product which is the output of the project, the project scope is the work needed to be done in order to complete the processes of the project.

Collecting project requirements is the process of determining the needs and requirements of stakeholders in order to achieve the project goals and reflecting them into the document.

Collect requirements process, which is of high importance in project management, allows us to better understand the needs of stakeholders, creating a useful tool for managing stakeholders in the hands of the project manager.

Collect requirements process is a part of the planning process group and scope management knowledge area. After the initiating phase of the project, it is implemented quite early. In order to implement the process of collecting requirements, the process of identifying stakeholders must definitely be implemented.  It will not be possible to collect the requirements of stakeholders without identifying stakeholders.