As the business analyst is responsible for the solution requirements, one must ensure a high quality in order to build the best solution possible. In fact, getting requirements right may be your single most important step toward project success!
Requirements must be –
Accurate
- Have all requirements been clearly and correctly documented?
- Have users participated in the validation of the requirements and confirmed them to be correct?
Assignable
- Who suggested the requirement, and what is the rationale?
Clear
- Is each requirement and business rule stated in specific terminology with no ambiguities that can be misinterpreted by developers or testers?
Complete
- Is the total set of requirements and business rules a complete representation of what must be delivered to meet the needs and solution vision?
Concise
- Is each requirement and business rule expressed as briefly and succinctly as possible?
Consistent
- Do any conflicts exist between individual requirements or groups of requirements?
- Do any conflicts exist between requirements and the business strategy?
Essential
- Does each requirement describe a feature of the system that adds value or is required for conformance to an external standard?
- Does each requirement map back to the business strategy?
Feasible
- Have the requirements been validated with the design team to ensure that the resulting features can be built within project scope?
- Is achieving requirements possible within the expected budget and schedule?
Prioritized
- Has the relative importance of each requirement been identified?
Traceable
- Is each requirement uniquely numbered?
- Does each requirement map back to the business strategy?
Validatable
- Can you envision a method to prove that each requirement in properly implemented in the solution?
Answer these questions and you’ll have an air-tight BRD!