Requirements Engineering Process

The Requirements Engineering consists of 6 distinct process steps:

1. Elicitation: Gathering information from stakeholders to understand their needs, goals, and expectations, using methods like interviews, workshops, and observations. This step focuses on understanding the problem space rather than defining formal requirements.
2. Analysis: Refining stakeholder needs to ensure they are clear, consistent, and aligned with business objectives. This step involves understanding the consequences and impact of stakeholder needs on existing product specifications, placing them in the business context, clarifying ambiguities, and ensuring completeness—without assigning priorities or assessing feasibility.
3. Specification: Documenting the requirements in a clear and precise manner, typically using natural language, models, or diagrams to ensure they are understandable and actionable for all stakeholders.
4. Verification & Validation: Ensuring that the requirements are well-formed (verification) and that they accurately represent stakeholder needs (validation) through reviews, walkthroughs, or prototyping to avoid misinterpretations.
5. Management: Maintaining and controlling requirements throughout the project lifecycle, including tracking changes, managing dependencies, and ensuring traceability between requirements and the final solution.
6. Publication (Release): Distributing the finalized requirements to all stakeholders for approval and formalizing them as the official baseline for further development activities, ensuring that all parties are aligned on the agreed deliverables.