project management success series: part two

Pinnacle Business Systems www.pbsnow.com

Project Management Part Two:Know Your Requirements

Brandy shares her 15 years of experience in project management and has created a six-part series highlighting key elements to a projects success, specifically in the IT management industry.

Brandy Semore, Pinnacle’s Operations Manager

Follow these actionable steps and advice to help you improve the outcome of projects you lead or participate in at your organization.


Getting to Know Your Requirements

Know your requirements, document your requirements, review your requirements, and then confirm your requirements. This step is crucial for successful projects.

•Don’t make assumptions of project requirements, especially if you assume that others on the project know the proposed requirements.


The 4 Steps to Avoid Requirement Mistakes

Ask the questions, What are the requirements for this project? What are we wanting? During this time, the most important thing you can do is activate your proactive listening skills. Really listen to what you hear during this time to understand the goal.


Once the requirements are identified—gather these requirements, consolidate them, and document them. Take detailed notes during this brainstorming discussion.This step is often referred to as the scoping phase or discovery phase, i.e., identifying what is needed or required.





Once you’ve documented what the project requirements are, it’s important to review them with all stakeholders. By collectively reviewing what’s been documented, this evokes transparency and shows everyone involved understands the requirements. But do they understand your understanding?

Confirm. Confirm. Confirm. Knowing your requirements determines: budget, resources, time, priorities, and risks. Once you have received confirmation from all stakeholders that the documented requirements are detailed and complete, you have the blueprint for success and are ready to move on.



The costs of requirements errors are extremely high, the cost to correct errors injected early (during requirements development) multiplies as your project proceeds – costing you 50, 100, or even 400 times more as the project proceeds.


The Real Costs of Project Requirement Errors

You save money by getting requirements right to begin with. Why? Because fixing requirements errors accounts for 70% to 80% of your rework costs.


Invest More Effort

By investing only 10% more effort in requirements, large, complex projects experienced significantly lower cost overruns – 30% to 130% overruns fell to 10% to 20% overruns.

Learn More

Have questions for Brandy? Email her at [email protected]. Visit our website to learn more about Pinnacle Business Systems.


Project Management Success: Part 3 Write Your Project Plan

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project management success series: part two

Technology