Companies both large and small are having their Requirements Engineering budgets cut. This minimizes the ability of the Requirements Engineer to hire staff - either temporary or permanent - as well as minimizes their ability to purchase useful tools to help with their requirement effort.

Part of this may have to do with whether or not decision-makers see the value in Requirements Engineering. If the decision-maker does not see a value in the Requirements Engineering effort, this needs to change in order to build a business case for additional staff, tools, or training. For help with this scenario, please review the following from the SBDi Tip Archive:

• Earning Users Trust. September 2000.
• The Power of Meeting Minutes. March 2002.

If you think about it from a quality issue, you will have a much better chance of implementing a process that will work towards quality requirements. Then you need to get people to think about quality at an individual level. People need to understand the risk involved in avoiding the Requirements Engineering process and they also must see the value in every point of this process. If they think the Requirements Engineering process is going to be cumbersome, then it probably will be and the effort will be avoided. However, if you continually monitor and improve the process and obtain feedback from all those involved, then the process will be followed. Take a look at an interesting article, www.tenberry.com/nodefect/steps.htm, which applies to requirements as well as code.

Now, the big question. How do I increase my budget? This is the ammunition you need to help you with next year's budget request.

For Software Tools: Computers need to be viewed as enhancing what used to be done manually. So, if you cannot do it with a computer, the old manual means will have to suffice. We recommend that you record your time and estimate how much time and money you would have saved IF you had the software to help. To come up with a dollar amount, take the company accounting method hourly rate and multiply the hours (and probably days) that were wasted doing something manually.

For People Needs: Think about if you had the ability to delegate some of your work. Again, use the accounting recommended hourly or daily rate to identify the cost. Determine if the delay caused by not having enough help also delayed any profit or time-to-market misses that erode.

SBDi has consulted with many large and small companies on this issue. Requirements Engineering is a process that can be implemented in a high- or low-tech environment. The Requirements Engineering activities are equally important if you are a three-person company or a 3 million-person company. The real issue is implementing a quality Requirements Engineering process. The impact this process has on the final product is dramatic.

SBDi is available to work with your organization on Requirement related or Project/Program Management Anti-Patterns.

Our services include:

• Education of the management and development team on the value of the development, implementation and use of anti-patterns.
• Teaching how to identify, develop, validate, and implement anti-patterns.
• Developing project specific anti-patterns.
• Developing a divisional or corporate process for the development and implementation of anti-patterns.
• Review of existing anti-patterns for quality.

Pat Ferdinandi