Processing requirements by software configuration management

Short development life cycles, the importance of time-to-market and fast changes in technology influence the requirements engineering process. Requirements are exposed to changes during the entire development life cycle, and decisions related to requirements and system design are moving toward developers. For this reason it is important to keep requirement changes under control during the entire development process. This control can be achieved by utilizing Configuration Management (CM) functions and in particular Change Management. This paper describes a model for managing requirements using CM functions. A requirements specification is defined as an hierarchic structure, in which elements of the structure are isolated requirements designated Requirements Specification Items. Having items under version control it is possible to get a better overview of the requirements change process. In the implementation phase, requirement items are associated with Change Requests which define implementations to be introduced in the system. When using Change Requests as links between requirements and the implemented functions we achieve a greater awareness of requirements and a better overview over the requirement process. Furthermore it provides a foundation for reuse of requirements when new systems are built.