% Some pieces from BABOK

Requirements life cycle

The purpose is to ensure that business, stakeholder, and solution requirements and designs are aligned to one another and that the solution implements them.

Trace

Business Needs <-> Business Requirements <-> Stakeholder Requirements <-> Solution Requirements (Design <-> Code <-> Test)

Maintain

The purpose is to retain requirement accuracy and consistency throughout and beyond the change during the entire requirements life cycle, and to support reuse of requirements in other solutions.

Prioritize

Typical factors that influence prioritization include:

Assess changes

The purpose is to evaluate the implications of proposed changes to requirements and designs. The task is performed as new needs or possible solutions are identified.

Approve

The purpose is to obtain agreement on and approval of requirements and designs for business analysis work to continue and/or solution construction to proceed.

Business analysts are responsible for ensuring clear communication of requirements, designs, and other business analysis information to the key stakeholders responsible for approving that information.

Approval of requirements and designs may be formal or informal. Predictive approaches typically perform approvals at the end of the phase or during planned change control meetings. Adaptive approaches typically approve requirements only when construction and implementation of a solution meeting the requirement can begin.

Business analysts work with key stakeholders to gain consensus on new and changed requirements, communicate the outcome of discussions, and track and manage the approval.