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Blog
The reasons
for project failures are backed up by some interesting international
research findings.
Ideally, successful project implementation includes Project Assurance
services including Requirements Management and Contract Management,
from initial project inception to project completion. Using a proven
Quality Assurance Methodology can provide assurance to ensure that
the project or program delivers a solution that meets the originally
specified business requirements within the agreed budget.
Gartner
Research ID Number: G00160211
The First Key to Project Success
Is Collaborative Requirements Definition and Management
Matt Light
This research examines the continued importance
of requirements definition in management, even as iterative development
has become mainstream and accelerated agile methods are leaving
the "early adopter" phase. How requirements are gathered,
then managed, is among the first and most important activities in
delivering information systems projects.
Key Findings
- Active collaboration is essential
for successful information system and service projects.
- Business sponsors often fail to express
clear judgments about priority requirements.
- Requirements definition presents a project
team (including stockholders) with one of its earliest - and,
perhaps, most important - choices as to the level of capability
maturity it will bring to the project.
Recommendations
- Adopt measures to drive active collaboration
on project requirements.
- Insist on clear business-sponsor guidance
as to whether scope, schedule or budget is the No. 1 priority.
- Become adept at multiple modes of requirements
definition, and capture requirements in manageable form.
Gartner
Research ID Number: G00165755
Requirements Form the Foundation
of Software Quality
Thomas E. Murphy
A large number of defects are injected
into software when the requirements are collected, but the defects
aren't detected until the testing phase. Involving the quality assurance
(QA) team in requirement reviews can detect and remove a high percentage
of these defects, improving project efficiency and reducing costs.
Key Findings
- Finding and fixing defects during the
development of the requirements is more than six times more
cost-effective than doing so during the development phase.
- Requirement defects remain a large
percentage of defects, and cause IT versus business friction.
- Communication defects are driven out
by better requirement-eliciting practices.
- Involving the QA organization in a
sign-off review leads to early defect detection and better testing.
Recommendations
- Before implementation begins, establish
QA-driven requirement reviews.
- To minimize rework costs, invest in
improving the quality of requirements.
- To reduce communication errors, use
newer requirement-eliciting tools and prototyping with short
cycles
The
statistics below are drawn from various industry sources –
tells a pretty shocking tale!
The business drivers for employing
Project Assurance Services early in the program life cycle include:
- Reworking requirements defects on
most software development projects costs between 40% and 80%
of total project effort.
- Requirements defects may cost between
10 to 200 times as much when detected in a production system
or 10 times as much if detected during testing as compared to
detection at the requirements definition stage.
- As much as 60% of all defects in a
systems lifetime originate from deficient requirements
- The costs of handling subsequent legal
disputes are often so high that the disadvantaged party abandons
the project or decides to pay more for less scope rather than
attempting to enforce their rights and rescue the project
Cavendish Project
Assurance services reduce project risk, contain costs, and increase
the prospects of on-time delivery of the required solution.
Deliverables of a good project assurance
process:
- Requirements Engineering Framework
from requirements definition to project delivery
- Provision and management of Requirements
Engineering tools and processes
- Contract management from project inception
to completion of handover
- Quality Assurance management and reporting
across all work streams
- Solution architecture strategic roadmap
and technology plan.
- Work package definitions and program
delivery management
- Risk management plans and reporting
covering all stakeholder entities
- Requirements Prioritisation and Traceability
Matrices
- Complete user acceptance testing management
and assurance
- Tailored work products and deliverables
specific to individual projects
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