From the course: Project Management Foundations

Gather requirements

From the course: Project Management Foundations

Gather requirements

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- [Instructor] Now that you have the project goal, objectives, and strategy identified, it's time to describe specifically what the project must deliver, known as requirements. Getting requirements right is crucial. If you don't identify a project's true requirements, the stakeholders won't be satisfied with the project results. And if you include requirements that aren't necessary, the project will probably take longer and cost more than it should. For the hospital scheduling project, one objective is rescheduling procedures decreased by 75%. One requirement for the scheduling system might be, simultaneously schedule staff, equipment, and facilities required for a procedure. Another requirement could be, search for next time slot that all selected items are available. These requirements are both necessary and specific. You can expand them to provide even more detail. Gathering requirements can be challenging. Stakeholders might describe their requirements incorrectly or provide inconsistent or contradictory requirements. They might leave out requirements they need or include nice to haves. Sometimes people who aren't stakeholders try to squeeze their requirements into your project. In addition, stakeholders often balk at committing the time it takes to define requirements. There are several techniques for gathering requirements. Interviews are one approach. The key is to interview the right people and come with a list of questions. If your project involves several groups, try brainstorming sessions or focus groups with representatives from each group to discuss their requirements for the project. These meetings may help you obtain buy-in from the departments that attend. Another approach is to observe how people work. In other words, watch what people do in their day to day activities. To validate the requirements, write them up and review them with the workers. Questionnaires and surveys are another way to get requirements from stakeholders. Build these documents carefully so the questions don't influence the answers people provide. If documentation or results already exist, you can identify requirements by analyzing documents or reverse engineering products. Next, you need to analyze the initial requirements to make sure they make sense. You might discover that you don't have all the information you need, or that requirements are inconsistent or duplicated. After you do some analysis, go back to your stakeholders to ask more questions and clarify their answers. Don't worry, it can take several rounds to get a project's real requirements. Eventually, the requirements will start to make sense. When that happens, it's time to document those requirements. To ensure that the requirements are correct and everyone understands them, it's important to write them in a clear, easy to understand language. Organizing requirements into related categories can help you eliminate duplication and conflicts. Requirements provide detailed descriptions of what a project is supposed to deliver, so it's important to get them right. For practice. Identify the techniques you might choose to gather requirements for the hospital scheduling project and how you would address any challenges.

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