The Process for Defining Requirements
After the project charter is created, you will probably spend time talking to the sponsor and other stakeholders about
what they expect from the project. They will have many ideas about what they need, some of which will conflict with one another. As the project manager, your responsibility is to determine which of these needs the project will actually fulfill – the requirements. Requirements define what the project will deliver. The requirements document is a formally documented description of the sponsor's needs that must be addressed by the project. Requirements state what the sponsor wants and what the project staff has agreed to deliver.
Requirements also serve as the basis for developing project plans. Your project team needs requirements in sufficient detail to begin work.
The process of defining requirements includes the following steps:
The information you gather about what the sponsor and stakeholders want translates into needs. Needs are activities, services, products, and deliverables that are useful, required, or desired. Your job is to turn needs into either requirements or exclusions. Exclusions are statements of what you will not provide; that is, "not-included" requests. They are ideas or requirements for a future project, needs that you will not be meeting or providing in the current project.
Needs are initially identified when a proposal is developed. These needs are documented in the request for proposal, marketing letters, project charter, contract, and internal document of understanding. These needs are usually too general to be useful to your project team. An example of a general or high-level need is "Train employees to operate a system that does XYZ on ABC's platform." Sometimes, details are included; but, usually the details that you and your team require to make this project successful are missing.