Pitfalls and Best Practices in Requirements Engineering and Management - Requirements Engineering and Management for Software Development Projects - page 206

14.3.8 Tracing and Tracking of Requirements
It is not uncommon to miss out on some requirements specified by the end users.
As we carry out software design, construction and testing, we miss out on some of
the requirements. To ensure that we do not miss out any requirement, we use the
requirements traceability matrix tool. What often happens is that we neglect to
maintain the traceability matrix under pressure from various software engineering
and management activities. This is the pitfall that many project managers fall into.
The best practice is to diligently maintain and update the traceability matrix at
every stage. Then verifying it regularly to ensure that the requirements are all
included in every stage of software engineering ensures that all requirements are
included in the software product.
14.3.9 Supervision
The quality of supervision has a very significant impact on any human endeavor.
In requirements engineering and management too, the same is true. Organization
provides a platform for project managers to motivate their resources. Fair allo-
cation of work, fair grievance handling, provision of adequate duration for com-
pletion of assignments, fair and equitable recognition and rewards, opportunities
for learning new skills and updating of existing skills and so on would go a long
way in keeping the morale high and motivates the employees. It may not be an
exaggeration to state that more employee separations happen due to poor super-
vision than organizational policies.
The best practice is to ensure that the supervision of resources working on the
requirements engineering activity is carried out fairly and equitably. It may be
necessary to train the project managers in managing people to achieve fair
supervision.
14.3.10 Project Postmortem
Hospitals periodically conduct a conference referred to as ''death conference''. In
this conference, all cases of death that took place in the hospital are discussed. The
pathologist who conducted the postmortem leads the discussion by giving the
cause of the death and how the treatment slowed/hastened the death. The doctor
who treated the patient discusses the assumptions and diagnostic decisions he/she
arrived at and so on. The mistakes committed, if any, are discussed openly. It is
from these conferences that all the doctors learn so that the mistakes are not
repeated again. Similarly when we complete a project, we also need to conduct a
project postmortem meeting and discuss the achievements and failures so that all