Requirements Management System (RMS)

A Requirements Management System (RMS), when systematically implemented with a commitment to its inherent processes, enables organizations to better manage requirements development.

H-T's answer to this challenge consists of comprehensive, step-by-step processes across the entire spectrum of requirements information management, including:

• Genesis and evolution of requirements; and linkage to analyses and supporting justification, effectively establishing a corporate memory.
• Automated document coordination and review with information validation and verification as significant by-products.
• Configuration control, accountability of changes, and collaborator feedback on the disposition of submitted changes.
• Automated document production featuring output in user-defined formats.
• An MS Office user-friendly interface.

Use of our RMS results in increased document quality, improved productivity and enhanced customer communications. Our customized tools, tailored approach, and associated processes, produce both short and long-term organizational benefits.

Definition, Linkage and Traceability

The key to the success of any project is the early definition of requirements and a subsequent capability to trace to their justification. Using an object-oriented database as its core, RMS supports these objectives, including identifying thresholds and objectives. This data is readily accessible for the life of the system. H-T presents data in customer-specified formats for a full range of requirements documents.

Internally and externally generated requirements documents, along with information contained in overarching high-level guidance that bears on system design, are electronically linked within the database. Resulting tailored reports provide managers with the current status of requirements and details of their evolution.

Careful attention to detail when defining requirements and validating their justification provides:

• Readily available rationale for all requirements and subsequent changes.
• Fast identification of source documentation as well as highlighting missing justification.
• The capability to portray the impact of subsequent changes on derived requirements.
• Global search of the database by subject area ensures diverse documents contain compatible requirements.

Automated document coordination enables reviews using standard desktop computers.

Version Control and Accountability

A key element of H-T's RMS is configuration management achieved through limited data access and processing of all submitted changes through the controls inherent in the object-oriented database:

• original and subsequent versions of documents and data are catalogued and updated only by a designated RMS administrator
• changes or updates to data are graphically visible in MS Word markup for system customers and only used to update the database when approved by the appropriate authority

The who, when and why of every change or modification to each requirement is recorded by the RMS. This change history is fully automated and requires no specific action by the operator. When importing data from external sources, comparisons can be made to existing data to flag any changes. Full accountability is preserved and data integrity is maintained by system controls.

Export of data to MS Office applications, including Web-enabled formats, can be filtered for designated classifications and releasabilities, and allows maximum access and manipulation of the data without risk of compromise to the RMS database.