Within most software requirements definition phases, priority is established at the Feature level (usually high, medium, low). Requirements are then developed but not necessarily based on the priority established by the business. What teams usually find is that most requirements are interconnected, so the team may start with a high priority feature but inadvertently move into low priority areas out of association. This causes the team to misalign with the business objectives over time. What typically happens in this case is the team misses expectations by veering off course during the project.
The use of Agile Requirements Definition and Management (RDM) solves this problem by going through several prioritization cycles during each project. RDM follows a lean thinking philosophy of waste reduction and continuous improvement, therefore, each iteration or Sprint allows the team to pause and reflect on whether they’re aligned with the business objectives, or not. It also insures that the requirements defined at the end are properly organized and prioritized for development consumption. This helps reduce cycle times and any project lag that may occur between requirements and development.
About the Author : Jason Moccia has over 14 years of experience in the software development field and is a co-founder and managing partner of OneSpring LLC (www.onespring.net), where he oversees the Federal business practice as well as Operations. OneSpring helps companies to work smarter by providing an entirely new approach to software requirement definition.
