How to Use Requirements in ALM

This task describes how to create and manage requirements in ALM.

To learn more about requirements, see Requirements Overview.

Higher-level task: This task is part of a higher-level task. For details, see ALM lifecycle.

  1. Prerequisites

    Determine the requirements scope by gathering information such as functional and technical specifications, marketing and business requirements documents, and stakeholders goals.

    • What is the main purpose and direction of the application?

    • What are the critical constraints of the application?

    • What are the major features of the application?

    • What is the relative importance of each element in the application functionality?

    • What are the critical or high-risk functions of the application?

    • What are your business or testing priorities?

    • Do your customers/end-users agree with your priorities?

    • What are your overall quality goals?

  2. Create requirements

    Define a hierarchical framework for your requirements scope by creating a requirements tree.

    Define different groups of requirements in the requirements tree. For each requirement group, you create a list of detailed requirements in the requirements tree. Each requirement in the tree can include any relevant attachments and rich text documents.

    You then assign the requirement a priority level which can be taken into consideration when creating the test plan.

    For task details, see How to Create Requirements.

  3. Import business process models

    If you work with business process models, you can create a framework of requirements by importing models created with standard modeling tools. The Business Models module enables you to analyze the quality of your business process models and business flows. For task details, see How to Work with Business Process Models.

  4. Trace requirements

    You can add traceability between the requirements. When analyzing the impact of a change proposed in a specific requirement, traceability shows the other requirements that the change might affect. For task details, see How to Trace Requirements.

    To determine the completeness of the relationships between your requirements, you can generate a traceability matrix. For task details, see How to Use the Traceability Matrix.

  5. Calculate risk

    Use risk-based quality management to calculate at which level to test each requirement, based on the nature of the requirement and the resources you have available. For task details, see How to Assess Risk.

  6. Create coverage

    Create coverage between your requirements and tests to ensure that all requirements are implemented in the project. For task details, see How to Create Coverage.

    You can also create coverage by converting requirements to tests in the test plan tree. Coverage is automatically created between the requirements and their corresponding tests. For task details, see How to Create Requirements.

  7. Link to defects

    You can link a requirement to specific defects. This is useful, for example, when coverage is created between requirements and tests. Linking defects can help you ensure compliance with your requirements and testing needs. If a requirement changes, you can immediately identify which tests and defects are affected, and who is responsible.

    For user interface details, see Linked Defects/Entities Page.

  8. Assign to releases

    Assign requirements to releases or cycles defined in the releases tree in the Releases module.

    Assign to release Right-click a requirement and select Assign to Release. For user interface details, see Select Releases Dialog Box.
    Assign to cycle Right-click a requirement and select Assign to Cycle. For user interface details, see Select Cycles Dialog Box.

  9. Analyze requirements

    Review your requirements to ensure that they meet the defined requirements scope. After a requirement is approved, you change the status of a requirement from Not Reviewed to Reviewed.

    To help review the requirements, you can generate reports and graphs. For task details, see Analysis.

    Tip: For samples of how to create graphs for Business Process Testing framework requirement metrics, see this KB article.

  10. Establish baseline

    Create a baseline to sign off on or compare significant milestones in your application lifecycle. For task details, see How to Use Libraries and Baselines in ALM.

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