Approval Process
What are the different ways to solicit approval?

By now, all Stakeholders should agree on the Requirements and need only ensure that the Requirements have been interpreted correctly.

Approval requires the continued involvement of many Stakeholders, including subject matters experts, quality specialists, users, customers, technical personnel, business owners, and senior management. These Stakeholders fall into three categories--Reviewers, Approvers, and Project Team--and should be consulted on each aspect of the approval process.

There are various techniques for soliciting approval:

• Requirements Reviews involve detailed inspection of the Requirements Documents. The process involves looking for any errors, including false assumptions, non-standard practices, and unclear language. Changes that do not affect other Stakeholders are included immediately. All other suggestions and comments are reviewed for possible inclusion.
• Prototyping--either as a physical object (prototype) or a simulated scenario (pilot)--provides useful data for verifying the validity of Business Requirements. Observation of the prototype or pilot may reveal design defects that were not otherwise apparent. Successful prototyping can be the key factor that keeps a project going.
• Model Validation involves checking anticipated results against actual results obtained through separate and verifiable means. This process ensures that Business Requirements being established will behave as intended.
• Acceptance Tests deal with expected results based on probable scenarios. These tests are performed on the part of the customers.

Approving Requirements is one of the most important steps in defining requirements. There should be no shortcuts allowed at this stage. Take all the time needed to ensure the validity of Business Requirements.

ClearlyPUT's Requirementing process uses the approval process in it's process.

Summary

Once all Business Requirements have been Negotiated and Organized, all that remains is the Approval process. Approval requires the involvement of many stakeholders and may be solicited in the following ways: Requirements Review, Prototyping, Model Validation, and Acceptance Tests. Approving Requirements is one of the most important steps in defining requirements.

Requirementing Steps