This article presents the main advantages and (very rare) disadvantages of using a requirements management tool by your IT development project teams.
Benefits
- Reduced number of functional bugs
This reduction is the direct consequence of using a repository whose requirements quality contributes to increasing the quality of deliverables for the project owner and technical teams.
- Reducing time to market
This reduction is possible thanks to a rapid and precise identification of the impact of regulatory and business changes on the requirements of the solution domain.
- Lower development costs
Fewer functional bugs, improved quality and clarity of the requirements produced by the project owner, and technical teams that focus on the need, not its interpretation, lead to a reduction in the cost of your development projects.
- Increase user satisfaction
Fewer bugs, more frequent upgrades and/or patches, and rapid adaptation to new developments all contribute to increasing the satisfaction of not only your application users, but also your internal project stakeholders.
- A repository accessible 24/7/365 with up-to-date requirements
Requirements always in their latest version, immediately available. In addition, you only give access to requirements (via projects and groups) to those people within your organization (or from outside) who need to have access to them.
- Get real validation of your requirements
Replace “default” reviews of functional documents of several dozen to hundreds of pages with collaborative reviews focused on a limited and consistent number of requirements.
Disadvantages
- Requires support for your business analysts
The adoption of a requirements management tool requires support for your business analysts, not for the use of the tool itself, but to ensure compliance with best practices (in terms of writing, repository organization and modeling) and the construction of a quality repository.