Pitfalls and Best Practices in Requirements Engineering and Management - Requirements Engineering and Management for Software Development Projects - page 205

14.3.5 Modeling Issues
Now, we have plenty of diagrams to model the data and the system. We can draw
any number of diagrams to model the present system or the way as we understand
the system. The diagrams are great if used properly in understanding the system.
After all, a picture is worth a thousand words. But often, we draw diagrams in a
complicated manner making it difficult to make any sense out of them. One, the
diagrams take a lot of time to draw them and two they take a significant amount of
time from those who try to interpret them and carry out the software design.
Therefore, we need to use the modeling diagrams judiciously. We must draw a
diagram when it aids clarity and to simplify narration. We should not avoid nar-
ration because we included a diagram. The diagrammatic tools available in soft-
ware engineering are not as efficient as engineering drawings in communicating
information—yet.
Therefore, the best practice is to provide a judicious mix of diagrams and
narration to make our establishment of requirements in a clear and lucid manner.
14.3.6 Prioritization of Requirements
During the establishment of requirements, we ought to prioritize individual
requirements. Often times, this aspect is overlooked. When we do not prioritize the
individual requirements, their fulfillment would be based on the convenience of
the project team rather than the necessity of the end users. This results in the
situation of ''urgent functionality is not yet ready and for the functionality that is
ready for use end users are not ready''.
The best practice is to prioritize the requirements especially from the standpoint
of the necessity of the end users. This will enable us to execute the project and
making deliveries that would be put to immediate use and thus save the investment
made in the software project.
14.3.7 Change Management
We know that almost all software projects would have changes during the
execution phase of the project. Still, it is not uncommon for projects to be neg-
ligent on the aspect of requirements change management. Even when the orga-
nizational process mandates planning and managing the change requests, the
project management neglects this aspect sometimes. Planning for change man-
agement and implementing the plan should not be neglected. Careful planning for
handling mid-project change requests and diligent implementation of the change
management plan are best practices.