Requirements

Things never to forget when you are working with requirements. I had to have another look at the "requirements bible"just to refresh my mind.

• Originator: who brought up the requirement - why? So you can clarify further with the "originator"
• Customer satisfaction: a measurement how satisfied the stakeholder would be if the final product contains the implemented requirement. Don't forget about the next one!
  
• Customer dissatisfaction: the other way around! This is a very interesting one and can help to put the previous one into perspective.

I am a very big fan of Wiki pages to work with requirements. Works a lot better to collaborate on a wiki page than to e-mail an Excel file around, or to put an Excel file on a central location. However, excel is of course better to generate lists / analyses (pivot tables!). Start off with a wiki page, and once you have some kind of agreement, throw / copy into excel and have some Pivot table fun! :o)

More excellent materials can be found in the Bible of Requirements management: "Mastering the Requirements Process", Second Edition, by Suzanne ROBERTSON and James ROBERTSON.

A must-have for any project manager - whether you work with IT (development or non-development) projects or not.