One thing I associate with product management is the need to keep marching through the many efforts required to design and build software, then launch it in the market — no matter how difficult the times. And so we have this week’s issue, as scheduled.

Respectfully,

Jacques Murphy,

• Feeling sad for the people of Iraq,
• Grieving for the lost and those who love them,
• Feeling proud of the U.S armed forces,
• Hoping for a swift return to peace,
• Reliving feelings from September 11,
• Trying to go about my daily tasks in spite of it all.

In the previous issue we “took a course” called Requirements 101 covering the Requirements document. That document is a tool produced for each release and serving as the fuel for the next round of software development work. It is the main component of the requirements effort.

Requirements 101- the Requirements Document, is the “prerequisite” for this week’s course.

In addition to the Requirements document, the process of researching, soliciting, gathering, defining, prioritizing and communicating requirements rounds out the whole requirements effort. The process serves to ensure that the Requirements document attains the right level of quality, and that development output matches the business needs and priorities expressed in the Requirements document.

You can rely on the process to make a painstaking component of product management run a little more smoothly.

Read on for the steps to follow for a successful Requirements process, and for overall guidelines on it.