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Requirements Purpose and Definition
Other common names
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Business Requirements
Business Needs Assessment
Requirements Gathering
What is this document?
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This document is a tool to support the discovery of the functional and non-functional business requirements
describing the high-level purpose of what must be accomplished for a project to meet or satisfy its goals.
Requirements define and clarify the process needed to achieve the desired outcome and provide metrics or an
evaluation standard for the outcomes to be compared against.
Why should you use this document?
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The final business requirements document provides a framework for the technical translation of the high-level
project features into concrete operating requirements the technical staff will use to accomplish the project.
Also the final document provides metrics and evaluation standards for evaluating the final project outcomes.
Where does it get used?
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It is created during the planning phase of a project after the project charter to further define functional and nonfunctional requirements impacting the process leading to the end results of a project.
As a reference document throughout the project acting as a high-level technical guide to keep the project on
track.
At the end of the project as a source of metrics and evaluation standards against which the final project
outcomes are judged.
Who creates this document and uses it?
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The Project Manager or Business Analyst with a collaborative effort of the key stakeholders including the
sponsors, the customer, the development staff, the administrative policy and contract support staff and other
vested parties. In a successful project it is critical before the start of technical work to close the loop with the
stakeholders to gain buy-in of the final requirements.
The project manager and project teams will use this document to define constraints on the project processes
and metrics serving as benchmarks to judge how well the project meets the projects objectives and goals during
and at the end of the project.
When should this document be created?
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During the planning phase of the project after the initial draft of the project charter is completed. It helps to
define technical and non-technical attributes of the project assisting in the finalization of the project charter and
initializing the technical phase of the project.
The project team can continue to refine the document as changes to the project scope occurs or external factors
influencing the project outcomes are encountered.
How do you fill out the document?
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Begin by gathering information (requirements gathering) from the stakeholders about the functional and nonfunctional requirements of the project.
Requirements gathering can be done through a variety of means including interviews, surveys, brainstorming,
use cases, prototypes, storyboarding or other methods to collect information from the stakeholders.
The Project Manager or Business Analyst should complete the relevant sections of the document based on the
information collected from the stakeholders. Emphasis is placed on the functional and non-functional
requirements that serve as technical guidelines for the project. Often requirements are ranked in terms of
importance to their impact on the project as high, medium and low.
The document template provides numerous examples of functional and non-functional requirements that
should be edited and modified to meet the needs of your project.
Before using the information to initiate the technical planning of the project the document should be recirculated to the stakeholders to make sure all relevant functional and non-functional requirements for the
project have been defined and there is agreement on these requirements by the project sponsors.