Requirements Management Plan: Learn How to Control Requirements

A project is defined in the PMBOK as a temporary endeavor with a beginning and an end; which creates a unique product, service or result, as you can also learn in the online PMP training. A project has five process groups and ten project management knowledge areas. Before defining the requirements management plan, which is one of the management plans let’s remember what was the Project Management plan.

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Developing Project Management Plan Process is a part of the project planning process and it is also the second project integration management process, after developing project charter. The purpose of the project management plan is to set the framework of project planning, in other words, to define what needs to be done throughout the project to complete it successfully while meeting the project objectives.

Project Management plan includes series of plans and requirements management plan is one of those plans. In this article, we are going to define requirements management plan and its role in project management.

Management Plans: What is the Requirements Management Plan?

According to the PMP certification course, how to evaluate, manage and control requirements are described in the requirements management plan. Requirements are mainly acquired from the customers of a project. But all stakeholders will provide their inputs regarding their expectations from the project. Although all stakeholders and customers might propose requirements for the project, several requirements might not be approved in project scope after evaluations. That is the main purpose of requirements management.

Since requirements of a project mainly define what will be delivered throughout the project, requirements management plan is part of scope management plan. Requirements of a project define the scope of the project and determine the project objectives as well.

What is the Best Practice for a Great Requirements Management Plan?

Requirement management plan describes how requirements will be identified, managed and controlled. There might be several requirements coming from several stakeholders especially during project initiation and planning process. Some of these requirements might not be feasible or they may be conflicting each other. 

To produce a great requirements management plan, the requirements are evaluated and only agreed requirements are tried to be accomplished throughout the project. During project execution, it is checked whether determined requirements are ensured with the project deliverables. For instance, requirement traceability matrix is a method for tracing which requirement has been met with which deliverable.

You would find more information about requirements management plan and other management plans in a CAPM certification training.