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• Categorization of Risks in Project Risk Management

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SMART Requirements - Realistic

August 20, 2008 | Author: admin | Filed under: Project Management Best Practices, Requirements Management

SMART Requirements - Realistic (#5 in the series SMART Requirements)
By Jessica Popp

Realistic: answers whether the requirement is realistic to deliver when considering other constraints of the project and requirements. I personally reserve this category not to check for the grandiosity or the sometimes ridiculous requirement (see attainable), but instead look to answer whether the requirements and other project constraints in their entirety are able to be met.

• Weak Requirement: The marketing sales report will be delivered into production on or before November 1, 2008.

  Why is this weak? At first glance, this is a good requirement. The specificity of the date is good. The problem here is after the PM analyzes the amount of work to be done and the resources that are available to work on it, he realizes that the date is not possible to meet. This can be addressed in several ways: adjust the date, rephrase as hours to complete work, add additional resources to complete the work. Once you determine the best way to address the situation for the particular environment, re-write the requirement as required. If additional resources are negotiated, the requirement may not change. The important point here is to not “sign-off” on the completed requirements until you verify that you can complete them.

Jessica Popp is a practicing project manager in software engineering. She has more than 13 years experience in software development, project management and people leadership in both Fortune 500 and startup companies. She has a wealth of hands-on project experience from the smallest project to projects whose budgets exceeded $50M per year. Jessica holds a BBS in Information Systems, an MS in Decision Sciences and has a current PMP certification. Jessica runs Project Management 101, a blog dedicated to disccussing various topics about Project Management.

Related Articles

• A Project Management Primer - Scope - Documenting Requirements - SMART requirements
• Smart Planning: Balancing Functional and Non-Functional Requirements
• SMART Requirements - Introduction
• SMART Requirements - Time-bound (Timely, Traceable)
• SMART Requirements - Specific

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