When assessing requirements change, the business analysts evaluate every existing and potential new stakeholder requirement and design so they can make an informed decision whether an action on those requirements is required. Every change to the requirements and designs has its implications and analysts assess those changes to estimate the impact of those changes on the project. this task needs to be performed every time a new need arises or the possible solution is proposed.
Assessment of requirements changes helps understand how those changes increase or decrease the value of the solution and identify the potential steps to be taken. Also, it reveals possible conflicts or inconsistencies in relationships with other requirements. Each proposed requirement change needs to be checked for alignment with the overall strategy, the potential value for stakeholders, the impact on the delivery timeline, and possible influence on the risks, opportunities, and constraints of the whole project.
The inputs for requirements change assessments are proposed change, requirements, and designs. This task should produce outputs of requirements change assessment containing recommendations on approval, denial or modification, and design change assessment with similar recommendations.
The three main elements of the task of assessing requirements changes are:
- Assessment Formality
- Impact Analysis
- Impact Resolution
Guidelines and tools the business analysts use while assessing requirements changes are change strategy, domain knowledge, governance approach, legal/regulatory information, requirements architecture, and solution scope. The key business techniques of use here are:
- Business Cases
- Business Rules Analysis
- Decision Analysis
- Document Analysis
- Estimation
- Financial Analysis
- Interface Analysis
- Interviews
- Item Tracking
- Risk Analysis and Management
- Workshops
The stakeholders that are important for assessing requirements changes are customer, domain subject matter expert, end-user, operational support, project manager, regulator, sponsor, and tester.
