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All deliverables must be described in enough detail so that they can be differentiated from related deliverables. For example:

  • A twin engine plane versus a single engine plane.
  • A red marker versus a green marker.
  • A daily report versus a weekly report.
  • A departmental solution versus an enterprise solution.

One of the project manager’s primary functions is to accurately document the deliverables and requirements of the project and then manage the project so that they are produced according to the agreed upon criteria. Deliverables describe the components of the goals and objectives in a quantifiable way. Requirements are the specifications of the deliverables.

Project requirements

After all the deliverables are identified, the project manager needs to discover and document all of the requirements of the project ( [link] ). Requirements describe the characteristics of the deliverable. They may also describe functionality that the deliverable must have or specific conditions the deliverable must meet in order to satisfy the objective of the project. A requirement is an objective that must be met. The project requirements defined in the scope plan describe what a project is supposed to accomplish and how the project is supposed to be created and implemented. Requirements answer the following questions regarding the AS IS and TO BE states of the business: who, what where, when, how much, how does a business process work.

When you don’t get project requirements. Copyright: United Feature Syndicate, Inc. (2009).

Requirements may include things like dimensions, ease of use, color, specific ingredients, and so on. If we go back to the example of the company producing holiday eggnog; one of the major deliverables is the cartons that hold the eggnog. The requirements for that deliverable may include carton design, photographs that will appear on the carton, color choices, etc.

Requirements specify what the project deliverable should look like and what it should do. They can be divided into six basic categories, functional, non-functional, technical, user, business, and regulatory requirements.

Functional requirements

Functional requirements describe the characteristics of the deliverable, what emerges from the project in ordinary non-technical language. They should be understandable to the customers, and the customers should play a direct role in their development. Functional requirements are what you want the deliverable to do.

If you were buying vehicles for a business your functional requirement might be; the vehicle should be able to take a load from a warehouse to a shop .

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For a computer system you may define what the system is to do; the system should store all details of a customer’s order .

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The important point to note is that WHAT is wanted is specified, and not HOW it will be delivered.

Non-functional requirements

Non-functional requirements specify criteria that can be used to judge the product or service that your project delivers. They are restrictions or constraints to be placed on the deliverable and how to build it. Their purpose is to restrict the number of solutions that will meet a set of requirements. Using the vehicle example ( [link] ); without any constraints, the functional requirement of a vehicle to take a load from a warehouse to a shop, the solutions being offered might result in anything from a large truck to a sports car! Non-functional requirements can be split into two types: performance and development.

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Source:  OpenStax, Project management. OpenStax CNX. Aug 05, 2016 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11120/1.10
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