Dealing with requirements often presents companies with challenges – no wonder, as the number and complexity of different types of requirements is increasing. Whether standards, laws or the expectations of demanding customers: Those who fail to recognize requirements or respond to them appropriately are putting customer satisfaction and therefore their own competitiveness at risk. But what does "requirement" actually mean and why is structured requirements management so important?
The term "requirements management" refers to a process that ensures in particular that requirements are identified, documented, maintained, communicated and tracked. This process relates to the entire life cycle of the corresponding object (e.g. process, management system or organization).
The overarching goal of requirements management is to develop a common understanding of all relevant requirements, to fulfill them permanently and to document this. After all, not fulfilling requirements, or only fulfilling them inadequately, can pose a considerable risk to competitiveness and even the existence of the company. Requirements management is used to contain such risks.
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A general definition of "requirement" could be: a need or expectation that is either specified or also common practice or obligatory. This definition of a requirement is based on ISO 9000, which defines the principles and terms for quality management systems. Other management system standards use the same or similar definitions.
There is a wide variety of possible requirements that meet the above definition of a requirement: they are directed at processes, management systems or the organization itself, for example. They can be explicitly formulated or assumed to be common practice. As a rule, they can be traced back to a specific source. Such sources for requirements can be, for example
As already described, there are a large number of requirements from different interested parties. Requirements management is essential for dealing with these different types of requirements: ignoring, overlooking or missing requirements exposes a company to a high risk of sanctions or the termination of a business relationship. On the other hand, meeting requirements helps to improve quality and customer satisfaction.
As supply chains and processes become ever more complex and the number of requirements increases, dealing with them does not get any easier. Keeping an eye on all requirements, comparing them with other company resources and monitoring their implementation requires a systematic approach to requirements.
Exemplary representation of a requirements management process
The first step in the requirements management process is the identification and documentation of requirements. This is not just a matter of collecting the sources for requirements (such as laws, standards or contracts with customers): Identifying and documenting the relevant requirements from all these documents is an important sub-process in requirements management. Each requirement is then analyzed: What does the requirement mean for the company's business processes? To what extent is it possibly already being implemented? Can it be implemented at all? And what is the priority for implementation?
If the requirement has not yet been (fully) implemented, decisions may need to be made and measures introduced to take the requirement into account in future. Documents or processes may need to be adapted or newly created. In addition, requirements management includes the process of continuously monitoring all requirements. This is because they can change, be withdrawn or new ones can be added at any time. They may then have to be dealt with again. In this way, requirements management follows a continuous process.
The responsibility for dealing with requirements varies depending on the organization. In companies, however, different departments and people such as product and project management, development and sometimes also top management are typically involved. For this reason, teamwork and communication are important: this allows those who are most familiar with the subject area to deal with a requirement.
As described above, there are a large number of needs or expectations that can be considered requirements by definition. The use cases for requirements management are just as diverse. In principle, every company and every department can be confronted with requirements. In product development and manufacturing, for example, numerous quality expectations have to be met. The same applies to management systems such as a quality or environmental management system, whose requirements are often defined by standards. The same applies to corporate governance requirements, for example in the areas of ethics or compliance. Accordingly, requirements must also be observed when setting up and operating Integrated Management Systems.
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