Validating Requirements

A large number of projects do not achieve their goals. Failure to properly validate requirements is one key reason why so many projects fail to succeed.

Gathering requirements is not an easy thing to do, it requires excellent interviewing skills, persistence and a fair amount of time. It also requires truly understanding the problem the project intends to solve, understanding what is needed and why is needed (in my personal opinion, the whys are too often not explored well enough).


Validating  requirements against project goals and objectives

Once we have the requirements projects need to implement a mechanism to effectively confirm that they are actually met. Validating requirements requires understanding:

• Business needs
• The problem being solved by the project
• The expected outcomes
• How the project is expected to solve the problem

In the IT area, Testing should be planned to validate this understanding, unfortunately this is not always the case. Sometimes, the testing planning team is not familiar enough with the Project Charter, with the business needs or the details of the problem being solved. Testing is typically oriented to validating requirements, but validating project goals and objectives is more than meeting requirements.


Techniques to validate requirements and measure project goals are met

There are some techniques that help us validate project goals and objectives:

• Use requirements traceability matrix: it is important to ensure every requirement points to at least one project objective and also make sure requirements are SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-bound)
• Develop methods for validating business requirements
• Include in the project budget the validation effort and the tools necessary for that
• Identify responsible individuals for measuring that project goals are met and that the problem has been solved

Validating meeting project goals and solving the business problem involves measurement beyond the project, part of the project work is building the tools and processes that ensure that validation can be successfully done. Tell me, have you ever worked in a project where you think  validating solving the business problem has been missed?