Role: Requirements Specifier
This role specifies and maintains the detailed system requirements.
Relationships
Main Description

Different aspects of the requirements are typically documented in different types of software requirements work products; as such the requirements will usually be defined in multiple work products. A person playing this role may be responsible for many of those work products.

Properties
Multiple Occurrences
Optional
PlannedYes
Staffing
Skills

A person acting in this role needs good communication skills, both in terms of expressing themselves verbally and in writing. Knowledge of the business and technology domain is also important, but is not typically necessary for every project team member acting in this role.

For this role to be carried out efficiently, the person playing this role needs to be familiar with the productivity tools used to capture the results of the requirements work.

Assignment Approaches

This role can be assigned in the following ways:

  • Assign one or more staff members to perform the role only. This works well in large teams, particularly in situations where there are domain experts available who have significant domain knowledge to specify appropriate requirements.
  • Assign one or more staff members to perform both this role and the Role: Test Analyst. This strategy is a good option for small to mid-sized test teams, and is often used where domain experts are available to play both roles. You need to be careful that appropriate effort is devoted to satisfying both of these roles.