What are the requirements in a project

While starting a project the requirements needs to be listed out. It includes Business requirements and Technical requirements. Business requirements indicates how the project helps in developing the business and Technical requirements indicates the resources required to complete the project. Major requirements are resources, time, budget and deliverables. Once all the requirements are planned properly, the project can be initiated. The three main steps in project requirement analysis is identification of stakeholders, documentation of the requirements and managing the process. This ensures all the deliverables are met as per stakeholders expectations.

1. Resources: Proper resources should be available to initiate, develop and complete the project. Skilled resources should be engaged. Care should be taken that atleast one subject matrix expert should be there in the project to clear the doubts and have clear idea on the domain on which the project is worked. The resources should work in the project till the completion of the project. Any resignations or exit will affect the project’s success.
2. Time: The project should have sufficient time to complete it. The start time of the project should be planned. Each phase of the project should be planned as per the time schedule and completed on time. Timesheets should be maintained to calculate the working hours of the manpower.
3. Budget: Budget planned should be well enough to complete the project on time successfully. Any shortage of budget will affect the quality of the project and may also lead to failure of the project.

The requirements of the project can be planned through various elicitation techniques like brainstorming, interviews, JAD, Questionnaires etc. All the requirements should be documented perfectly to have clear idea on project objectives, process workflow and completion criteria. They help in tracking and managing the requirements through out the project.

1. Engage end-users: The end users should elaborately explain the need for the particular project
2. Host face-to-face meetings: Face-to-face interactions between stakeholders, analysts, and the development team to ask questions, share designs, and help to gather feedback.
3. Develop a process: A process to be developed that will accommodate requirement proposals, agreement, change management approvals, and version control. This will minimize costly delays.

The requirements can be gathered through following tools and techniques.

• Brainstorming: It is also called as group thinking or group creativity. People with different roles and functions are brought together for this technique and this technique will be very useful when the stakeholders do not have fixed needs and want try to explore new requirements and new horizons
• Interviews / questionnaires: this technique is followed when the stakeholders are in large groups
• Interviews: a tool that can be facilitated through personal meetings or phone calls which helps in gathering the individual needs
• Benchmarking: This technique helps in studying the gap analysis of the project.
• Context diagram: these diagrams represent a pictorial visualization of various interactions between users and different systems.

So In order to have a good requirement for a project, the requirement should satisfy a specific need, it should be verifiable, reachable and understandable to all stakeholders.