Project Management with the IBM® Rational Unified Process®: Lessons from the Trenches

Chapter 9. Navigating the Requirements Management Process

The importance of proper requirements management has been discussed repeatedly for years. Traditional engineering disciplines, such as civil engineering, learned the importance of requirements management very early. Failure to properly define and analyze the requirements for a building can result in having to tear down and rebuild walls or, worse yet, risk the collapse of a building, resulting in lost time and materials, and even loss of life. It is obvious that if the requirements for a building’s foundation are not adequately determined, the cost of rework is extremely high. For various reasons, this has only recently been recognized in the software industry. Because software can easily ...