Roles and Responsibilities in REM - Requirements Engineering and Management for Software Development Projects - page 159

5. Assist the organization in the definition of the organizational process for
requirements engineering as well as continuously improve it to keep it up to
date plowing back the experience gathered while executing the projects
6. Assist the organization in setting up a knowledge repository for the subject of
requirements engineering
7. Assist the organization in the recruitment of personnel to fill the positions of
business analysis through recruitment and selection
8. Assist the organization in training the new recruits for induction into projects
to carry out the work of requirements engineering
9. Evaluate tools and techniques for carrying out requirements engineering and
to recommend appropriate ones for acquisition to improve the efficiency of the
activity
10. Contribute to the profession in general to extend the frontiers of knowledge of
requirements engineering
11. Any other organization specific activity.
One aspect worth noting here is about the career path for business analysts.
Earlier, the systems analysts were progressing towards leading a project and then
on to project management. Because the systems analysts grew from programming
work, leading and managing projects was easy and presumed to be natural. But
when we recruit functional specialists and assign them to carry out requirements
engineering activities, promoting them to project management seems risky. But
organizations have been promoting business analysts to the role of project manager
and they seem to be performing ably. I would suggest that re-orientation training
be imparted before promoting a business analyst to a project manager. This would
help the business analyst to appreciate the technical issues with better clarity.
11.3.2 Quality Control
We have explained in detail the quality control activities as applicable to
requirements engineering. The persons entrusted with the quality control activities
ought to perform their activities diligently so that all and any lurking defects are
uncovered and passed on for fixing. They ought to err on the positive side, that is,
finding more errors even if they are perceived to be frivolous rather than allowing
a defective deliverable to slip through. Their responsibilities are:
1. Take ownership of the quality of the deliverable in a software project
2. Carry out the quality control activities of verification and validation diligently
and uncover all defects lurking inside the deliverable
3. Raise a defect report for all quality control activities carried out and follow
through until all defects are satisfactorily resolved
4. Assist the project management in the project postmortem and discuss all defects
so that they can be prevented in the future projects