What is BRD? How is it different from SRS?

Documentation is one of the responsibilities of a Business Analyst. Business Analyst will be responsible for creating many documents. But there are some documents that difficult to differentiate i.e. BRD and SRS.

Difference between these documents is based on:

• Who creates them?
• What level of information is available in these documents?
• In what stage these documents are being created?
• Who uses these documents?
• What’s the purpose of the document?

Let’s compare them together and see the key difference between BRD and SRS. Please find below in detailed BRD and SRS

Business Requirement Document (BRD)

Business Requirement Document i.e. BRD is required during the starting phase of the project. A BRD is a requirement package that describes business requirements and stakeholder requirements. This document contains the high-level business requirements that are written in a well-structured manner without any technical jargon. This document is prepared during the initial stage of the project with the help of business stakeholders and key end users.

BRD explains what functionality system should have and answers the “why” part of the system requirements. It lists the business stakeholder’s requirements and expectations from the system. Following are may be similar requirements for an online banking:

• Bank customers should be able to register themselves.
• Registered bank customers should be able to log in.
• Customers should be able to do online transactions.
• Customers should be able to open fixed deposit online
• Customers should be able to recharge their mobile phones etc.

Since the BRD is prepared during the initial phase of the project and it is one of the outputs from the requirement elicitation process, it is prepared by the business analysts. This document is referred by the business users and stakeholder’s approval required on this document to proceed with planning and development steps.

Software Requirement Specification (SRS)

SRS Document is one of the important documents for the development team. It is complete description of the behaviour of a system to be developed. SRS prepare documents what requirements must be fulfilled to satisfy the business requirements. With the system with the help of use cases it also describes all the user interaction

It includes all the functional and non-functional requirements along with the use cases that the software meet. It includes complete business requirements, system properties, constraints and behaviours e.g. system’s reliability, response time, storage requirement etc. SRS is useful or help for estimating the cost and effort required for developing that software.

In a nutshell, a software specification requirement document elaborates on the business requirements mentioned in BRD to a accommodate the functional and non-functional requirements along with user interactions with the system i.e. use cases. Therefore, you might not find this document in small projects because for them BRD and Functional Specification Document (FSD) documents are enough to develop a system.

This document is prepared by system analyst or business analyst and referred by the project management, development, and implementation teams. This document is also known as System Requirement Specifications and Product requirements Document (PRD).

Difference between BRD and SRS