Sometimes the definition of requirements and management of their delivery is described as Scope management. Scope management is composed of five distinct phases:
- Scope initiation
- Scope planning
- Scope definition
- Scope verification
- Scope change control
Scope initiation refers to the justification phase. This is when a Product management team create Market requirements and Product requirements documents or a corporate change team will create a Project mandate and produce a Feasibility study. It is high-level, but it is critical to establish clearly that there is a need or justification and to understand the early boundaries.
Scope Planning is a lot more than it sounds and the danger in glib descriptions like this one is that they can easily lead to not taking the work seriously enough. This is the time when the established high level need at strategic level or market level is translated into a clear product definition with features that hopefully trace right back to the benefits put forward in the outline business case.
This phase is where the real requirements engineering happens and where the product design ideation and design phase product development will happen.
You may well be sitting there saying yes, but I only wrote down requirements for a simple off the shelf system and purchased it. Well if that was the case, going through the motions of making sure you understood the benefits and that the product would really be able to deliver them will have been quick and easy.
In my personal experience, the purchase of a cheap printer can be fraught with problems unless you go out with a clear scope in mind.
Scope definition.
This is where you either define work packages for the various teams of developers or suppliers, or you place and manage a procurement contract. Without a sound plan and careful management, the best possible plans and designs can come apart very quickly at this stage as requirements are misinterpreted, deliverables fail to deliver and tests fail to impress.
Scope verification.
This is best started at the earliest possible time. Ideally it starts as soon as there is a single deliverable that can be tested alone. This is the process of verifying that the deliverable performs, that it meets performance specifications and finally that the end product is capable of delivering the benefits.
Scope management.
This is another part of the project that can continue right through the process. It is the positive act of keeping everything form the earliest designs to the final deliverables within the scope that was agreed and signed-off and just occasionally invoking a change request procedure to accommodate a truly great idea or a serious oversight.
These five activities applied judiciously to the definition and delivery of a product of any kind will greatly increase the likelihood of success and reduce the risk of failures.
Ed Taaffe