What is Requirements Baseline
From Requirements Management School
The requirements baseline is what you are working towards achieving during the requirements development stage of the requirements engineering process. In essence it is an approved plan that maps out the development that is going to take place leading to delivery of the product. It is the keystone of the project design and implementation phases.
Finalization of the requirements baseline takes place after the validation process has been completed. A finalized set of documentation is issued for all stakeholders to sign off on. The validation and sign off processes help to ensure that that all the stakeholders buy into the project. The set of documents that are signed off on provide the stakeholders with a shared understanding of the product that will be delivered.
Contents of a Requirements Baseline
Best practice indicates that the following documentation should be included in the baseline documentation:
- A vision and scope document – this document is written by the project manager at the start of the project and generally identifies the problem that needs addressing and the vision of the solution. This document is often incorporated into the introduction section of the SRS.
- Use cases – the individual scenarios that describe the user’s requirements.
- SRS – the complete and accurate description of the technical specification and functionality of the system to be developed.
- Data dictionary – covers the definition of all data items and structures so that all stakeholders consistently use the same terminology and understand it.
- Analysis models – any graphical analysis models that add value, for instance class diagrams, entity-relationship diagrams, state-transition diagrams, object diagrams, domain model and/or data flow diagrams.
Once approved by all the stakeholders the baseline document becomes the foundation of the requirements management process. Any changes needed after the baseline is set are subject to stringent change control. This is because the baseline is a finite agreement between the development team and the business. Any changes required will be subject to agreement by both sides and re-negotiation of resources.
The documentation is also subject to rigorous version control in order to ensure that all stakeholders are working on the same version of the document.
