RD.SP 1.2 Transform Stakeholder Needs into Customer Requirements

The various inputs from the relevant stakeholders should be consolidated, missing information should be obtained, and conflicts should be resolved as customer requirements are developed and prioritized. The customer requirements can include needs, expectations, and constraints with regard to verification and validation.

In some situations, the customer provides a set of requirements to the project, or the requirements exist as an output of a previous project's activities. In these situations, the customer requirements could conflict with the relevant stakeholders' needs, expectations, constraints, and interfaces and will need to be transformed into the recognized set of customer requirements after appropriate resolution of conflicts.

Relevant stakeholders representing all phases of the product's lifecycle should include business as well as technical functions. In this way, concepts for all product related lifecycle processes are considered concurrently with the concepts for the products. Customer requirements result from informed decisions on the business as well as technical effects of their requirements.

Example Work Products

1. Prioritized customer requirements
2. Customer constraints on the conduct of verification
3. Customer constraints on the conduct of validation

Subpractices

1. Translate stakeholder needs, expectations, constraints, and interfaces into documented customer requirements.

2. Establish and maintain a prioritization of customer functional and quality attribute requirements.

Having prioritized customer requirements helps to determine project, iteration, or increment scope. This prioritization ensures that functional and quality attribute requirements critical to the customer and other stakeholders are addressed quickly.

3. Define constraints for verification and validation.