Approving Requirements
Make sure you get your requirements approved

The main objective of this step is to make sure that ALL the stakeholders agree on what business requirements the project is going to address and what is in scope for the project.

clearlyPUT uses an Approving Requirements step to support the validation and approval of the Business requirements.

This step should include a review of every single requirement so that if there are any problems with the requirements it is caught early in the project. This approval step also ensures that all the Business Requirements are structured properly.

This process should include the following types of people:

1. Reviewers – people reviewing for content and structure and providing feedback. They are your subject matter experts, the users, quality assurance, etc.
2. Approvers – people who are formally agreeing to this document as the “scope” for the project. These are typically people who have the authority to accept this change and to allocate resources to the project. This group should include the business owner(s), senior management, project manager, etc.
3. Project Team – These are the people who will accept this document as their problem definition statement. The group should include your programmers, architects, etc. This is for information only to allow them to start thinking about the project.

The actual activity of reviewing and approving the requirements needs to be planned and should contain the following steps:

1. Determine approver distribution list.
2. Distribute Business Requirements document to distribution list.
3. Solicit feedback and document responses.
4. Incorporate specific responses that do not impact other stakeholders.
5. Plan and schedule Requirements Approving Workshop.
6. Conduct Business Requirements Approving Workshop.
7. Address all responses received from Step 3 above.

This is one activity which cannot be overlooked or hurried through. Take your time and make sure that everyone thoroughly understands each requirement. Review each response from Step 3 above.

Baseline – Once all the requirements have been reviewed and signed off they must be “baselined”. Baselining is the first official version of the Business Requirements. Any changed to this document, after it has been baselined, will require a change request and, possibly, more resources.

Summary

Business Requirements must be reviewed and approved by the “reviewers”, “approvers” and the “project team”. This approving requirements activity can use facilitated workshops and standard document review. Once the document has been reviewed and approved, it must be baselined.

Requirementing Steps