Artifact:  Requirements Management Plan

Requirements Management Plan	Describes the requirements documentation, requirement types and their respective requirements attributes, specifying the information and control mechanisms to be collected and used for measuring, reporting, and controlling changes to the product requirements.
Role:	System Analyst
Enclosed in:	Software Development Plan
Template:	Word Template HTML Template
Examples:	Requirements Management Plan - from the Wylie College Process Web Site Requirements Management Plan -from the Collegiate Sports Paging System (e-Business)
More Information:	Guidelines:Requirements Management Plan Concept: Requirement Concept: Requirements Management Concept: Types of Requirements Concept: Traceability
Purpose Brief Outline Timing Responsibility Tailoring Annotated Outline (hyperlinks into HTML template in a new window)

Input to Activities: Detail a Use Case Detail the Software Requirements Launch Development Case Compile Software Development Plan Manage Dependencies Develop Requirements Management Plan

Output from Activities: Manage Dependencies Develop Requirements Management Plan

Purpose

A Requirements Management Plan should be developed to specify the information and control mechanisms which will be collected and used for measuring, reporting, and controlling changes to the product requirements. 

The purpose of the Requirements Management Plan is to describe how the project will set up requirements documents, requirement types and their respective requirement attributes and traceability.  

Brief Outline

(hyperlinks into HTML template in a new window)

1.     Introduction 

1.1      Purpose  

1.2      Scope  

1.3      Definitions, Acronyms, and Abbreviations  

1.4      References  

1.5      Overview   

2.     Requirements Management

2.1      Organization, Responsibilities, and Interfaces  

2.2      Tools, Environment, and Infrastructure  

3.     The Requirements Management Program   

3.1      Requirements Identification  

3.2      Traceability  

3.2.1    Criteria for <traceability item>  

3.3      Attributes  

3.3.1    Attributes for <traceability item>  

3.4      Reports and Measures  

3.5      Requirements Change Management

3.5.1    Change Request Processing and Approval

3.5.2    Change Control Board (CCB)

3.5.3    Project Baselines  

3.6      Workflows and Activities  

4.     Milestones  

5.     Training and Resources  

Timing

Developed during inception. Updated at each major milestone.

Responsibility

The Role: System Analyst is responsible for creating the Requirements Management Plan.

Tailoring

Tailoring should, as a minimum, include defining the traceability items, constraints, and attributes applicable to your project.  Other significant traceability concerns include:

• relationship to other plans, and
• tool considerations.

Relationship to Other Plans

The Requirements Management Plan contains information which may be covered to a greater or lesser extent by other plans.  The following approaches can be used to handle this potential overlap:

• simply reference the content in another plan,
• provide the overview in another plan, and provide greater detail in this plan.  References from these other plans to the Requirements Management Plan may be useful.  This often works well on large projects with a separate organization responsible for managing requirements,
• tailor the document sections to cover only those areas which are not covered elsewhere.

The following is a mapping of Requirements Management Plan sections to artifacts which may contain complementary information:

Tool Considerations

Rather than document the traceability attributes and their usage into a formal Requirements Management Plan, you may wish to enter this information directly into an online help tool, Web site, or into the tool that you use for managing attributes and traceability.

The Requirements Management Plan is often used to document more than just traceability items.  For example, users of Rational RequisitePro often use this document to capture other items managed by the tool, such as action items, glossary terms, etc.

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