Five Tips For Getting the Software Requirement Analysis Right the First Time

Importance of Requirement Analysis We all know that requirements need to gathered before any software development project. Do we really understand the importance of it....

Getting requirements right, early in your project, can save you one-third or more of your overall project budget. (Hooks and Farry, 2001)

You save money by getting requirements right to begin with. Why? Because fixing requirements errors accounts for 70% to 80% of your rework costs (Leffingwell, 1997).

The quality of the requirements captured will be define to a great extent if your project will be a success or a failure. Sometimes you may be asked to cut down the requirement capture time my argument to that would be "If you cannot invest in getting the requirements done right the first time, how are you going to afford the cost and time that would be required to fix it which would be much more that what needs to be invested now."

Tips for Requirement Analysis The requirement analysis and capture process should result in documentation which will cover the following aspects:

Define the Problem and High level description of the solution. The requirement Analyst needs to understand the problem and the need for solution. The questions which need to answered here are


What problems is the solution going to resolve? What benefits is the company going to derive from the solution? Are the requirements implementable?

Apart from answering the above questions a high level description of the solution which needs to be developed and the business needs it is going to address needs to be documented.


Cover needs of all stakeholders and users of the solution. You need to make sure that needs of all stakeholders are understood. You also need to understand the needs of the people who are ultimately going to use the solution / system. This is very important so that the solution delivers on all counts.This will also help in identifying conflicting requirements if any.

Define what the solution should and should not do. You should not only define what the solution should do but also define what the solution will not do. The requirements should be stated in a manner that nothing is left for imagination or which creates doubts.

Define the features required. Elaborate on the features required in the software solution. In Technical terms define Functional and Non-functional requirements . Try and capture the "What's" and not "How's".

Capture all supporting information. Include details about the Processes followed, Workflow, Information flow, hierarchies etc. Record any other information which might be relevant to the solution under consideration. Identify the source of all requirements and have them in documented in such a way that they are manageable.

Once you have applied all the above tips you will have Feasible, Non conflicting, Unambiguous, Traceable and Testable Requirements.

Benefits of Good Requirement Analysis
Cost Savings Shorten your development cycle Get a product that meets your needs Boost the team's productivity Reduce rework and conflicts arising from unclear and ambiguous requirements

Now that we understand how important it is to get the requirements right early on. Go and get your requirements right the first time...

You can look forward to the following topics in the series of requirement capture and analysis - Documenting Requirements, Common problems encountered during requirement analysis.

Pooja Gupta is a Co-Founder of FDSC, a software development company in India providing a range of software development services and helping it's customers achieve their business goals. Service offerings include new product development, custom software development, web based content management systems, business analysis and more.