Requirements Development

Requirements Development Overview

Requirements development is a process that consists of a set of activities that produce requirements for a product. The systems engineering standard [EIA 632] defines “requirement” as “something that governs what, how well, and under what conditions a product will achieve a given purpose.” Requirements define the functions, performance, and environment of the system under development to a level that can be built:

In the Department of Defense (DoD) the requirements process is governed by the Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System (JCIDS) Process. The JCIDS Process ensures the capabilities required by the DoD are identified and their functional and performance requirements are developed. The main engineering disciple that develops and controls requirements development is Systems Engineering (SE). Requirements development is Step One: Requirements Analysis of the Systems Engineering Process. The four (4) main requirements documents that are produced on a typical DoD program during a specific Acquisition Phase are:

Requirements Development Steps

There is no set standard way to develop requirements but they are normally developed following the same basic six (6) steps. These requirements development steps don’t really change depending on which SE model is used. All models are similar in their approach but they just usually depict the step differently graphically. The main model that is used is the Systems Engineering “Vee” where requirements development is depicted on the left side.

Below is a list of the basic six (6) steps of requirements development.

Other Requirements Development Topics

Other topics that Stakeholders, Program Managers (PM), and Systems Engineers need to know about Requirements Development are:

AcqLinks and References:

Updated: 8/18/2022

Rank: G1

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