Verify Requirements

Verify Requirements: A Comprehensive Guide for CBAP Exam Preparation

Introduction to Verify Requirements

Verify Requirements is a critical process within the Requirements Analysis and Design Definition knowledge area of the CBAP (Certification of Business Analysis Professional) exam. This process ensures that requirements are accurate, complete, consistent, and ready for implementation.

Why Verify Requirements is Important

Quality Assurance: Verification acts as a quality gate, catching errors, ambiguities, and inconsistencies before requirements move to design and development phases. This prevents costly rework downstream.

Risk Mitigation: By validating requirements early, organizations reduce the risk of building the wrong solution or implementing incomplete functionality.

Stakeholder Alignment: Verification ensures all stakeholders agree that requirements accurately represent their needs and expectations.

Cost Reduction: Identifying and fixing issues during the requirements phase is significantly cheaper than fixing them during development or after deployment.

Project Success: Verified requirements serve as a solid foundation for successful project execution, reducing scope creep and change requests.

What is Verify Requirements?

Verify Requirements is the process of ensuring that requirements meet specific quality criteria and are ready for the next phase of the project. It involves a systematic review of requirements to confirm they are:

• Accurate: Requirements correctly reflect stakeholder needs and organizational objectives
• Complete: All necessary requirements are documented with no significant gaps
• Consistent: Requirements do not contradict each other and align with other project documentation
• Feasible: Requirements can be realistically implemented within technical, budget, and time constraints
• Unambiguous: Requirements are clearly written and leave no room for misinterpretation
• Testable: Requirements can be objectively verified through testing
• Traceable: Each requirement can be traced to its source and through to implementation
• Ranked/Prioritized: Requirements are prioritized to reflect business value and importance

How Verify Requirements Works

Step 1: Prepare for Verification

Gather all requirement documentation, determine verification criteria, identify verification team members, and schedule verification activities. Establish standards and templates for consistent review.

Step 2: Select Verification Techniques

Choose appropriate methods based on project context and requirements characteristics:

• Reviews: Formal or informal meetings where stakeholders examine requirements for accuracy and completeness
• Walkthroughs: Structured reviews where the author guides the team through requirements
• Inspections: Highly formal reviews following specific protocols with defined roles and documentation
• Audits: Independent assessment against established standards and criteria
• Testing: Creating test scenarios to verify requirements can be objectively tested
• Prototyping: Building prototypes to verify requirements feasibility and stakeholder agreement
• Simulation: Using models to verify behavior and system interactions

Step 3: Conduct Verification Activities

Execute verification using selected techniques. Document findings, issues, and observations. Involve relevant stakeholders in the verification process to ensure comprehensive review.

Step 4: Document Issues and Non-Conformances

Record any requirements that do not meet quality criteria. Document the nature of the issue, its severity, and recommended corrective actions.

Step 5: Obtain Approval and Sign-off

Once requirements are verified and issues are resolved, obtain formal approval from stakeholders, sponsors, and other relevant parties. This sign-off indicates requirements are ready to proceed to design and development.

Step 6: Communicate Results

Share verification results with stakeholders and the project team. Update requirements documentation based on findings and maintain traceability.

Key Verification Criteria

Completeness: Are all functional and non-functional requirements documented? Are acceptance criteria defined?

Correctness: Do requirements accurately reflect stakeholder needs and business objectives?

Consistency: Are there conflicting or redundant requirements? Do requirements align with architecture and design constraints?

Clarity: Can stakeholders and developers understand requirements without ambiguity?

Testability: Can each requirement be objectively verified through testing?

Feasibility: Can requirements be implemented with available resources, time, and budget?

Traceability: Can each requirement be traced back to stakeholder needs and forward to design/implementation?

Roles in Requirements Verification

Business Analyst: Leads the verification process, gathers feedback, and coordinates updates

Stakeholders: Review requirements from their perspective and provide approval

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs): Assess feasibility and alignment with existing systems

Technical Team: Evaluates technical feasibility and design implications

Quality Assurance: Reviews testability and compliance with quality standards

Project Manager: Ensures verification activities align with schedule and budget

Common Verification Challenges

Stakeholder Unavailability: Getting busy stakeholders to participate in verification reviews

Scope Creep: Distinguishing between requirements clarification and scope changes during verification

Conflicting Opinions: Resolving disagreements between stakeholders about requirements accuracy

Technical Constraints: Balancing stakeholder wants with technical feasibility

Documentation Quality: Working with poorly written or ambiguous initial requirements

Exam Tips: Answering Questions on Verify Requirements

Tip 1: Understand the Distinction Between Verification and Validation

Verification answers "Are we building the requirements correctly?" It ensures requirements meet quality standards.

Validation answers "Are we building the right thing?" It confirms the final product meets stakeholder needs.

Exam questions often test this distinction. Always consider which process is being described.

Tip 2: Know Common Verification Techniques

Be familiar with all verification techniques listed above. Exam questions may present scenarios and ask which technique is most appropriate. Consider:

• Formality level required
• Stakeholder availability
• Complexity of requirements
• Project timeline and budget
• Type of requirements being verified

Tip 3: Focus on Quality Criteria

Questions often describe requirements problems and ask how to address them. Know the key quality criteria (complete, correct, consistent, clear, testable, feasible, traceable). Match problem descriptions to specific criteria.

Example: If a question describes requirements that developers interpret differently, this is a clarity/ambiguity issue requiring clarification.

Tip 4: Recognize Verification vs. Planning Activities

Verify Requirements is an execution activity, not a planning activity. Defining verification criteria happens in planning, but the actual verification process involves executing reviews, walkthroughs, or inspections with stakeholder participation.

Tip 5: Understand Stakeholder Involvement

Verify Requirements must involve relevant stakeholders. Exam questions may test whether verification is being done appropriately. A business analyst reviewing requirements alone is not sufficient verification.

Tip 6: Know When Verification Occurs

Verification happens after requirements are documented but before design begins. Recognize questions that are asking about timing and sequencing of activities.

Tip 7: Recognize Verification Outputs

Common exam questions ask about verification outputs. Key outputs include:

• Verified and approved requirements
• Issues and defect reports
• Verification reports
• Stakeholder sign-off documentation
• Updated requirements based on verification findings

Tip 8: Apply Traceability Concepts

Traceability is a key verification criterion. Questions may ask how to ensure requirements are traceable or how to use traceability matrices to verify completeness and consistency.

Tip 9: Identify Risk-Related Scenarios

Some exam questions present project scenarios with risks. Proper verification helps mitigate risks such as:

• Building features no one needs
• Missing critical functionality
• Conflicting requirements causing rework
• Technical impossibility discovered too late

Recognize how verification prevents these outcomes.

Tip 10: Distinguish Between Verification Issues

When an exam question describes a requirements problem, identify which quality criterion is violated:

• Missing features: Completeness issue
• Contradictory requirements: Consistency issue
• Vague language: Clarity issue
• Cannot build with available resources: Feasibility issue
• Cannot be tested: Testability issue
• Does not reflect stakeholder needs: Correctness issue

Tip 11: Recognize Appropriate Remediation

When exam questions describe verification findings, know the appropriate next steps:

• Requirements issues → Requirements analyst works with stakeholders to clarify/fix
• Feasibility concerns → Technical team reviews with stakeholders for solutions
• Missing requirements → Conduct additional elicitation with stakeholders
• Resolved issues → Document changes and re-verify as needed

Tip 12: Watch for Scope Creep Indicators

Exam questions may present scenarios where verification activities uncover new requirements or feature requests. Distinguish between:

• Clarifying existing requirements: Part of verification
• Adding entirely new features: Scope change requiring change control

Sample Exam Question Approaches

Scenario-Based Questions: Read carefully to identify what verification technique would be most appropriate given the context, stakeholder availability, and timeline constraints.

Problem-Solution Questions: Match requirements quality problems to appropriate verification criteria and remediation steps.

Sequencing Questions: Recognize the proper order of requirements activities. Verification occurs after elicitation and documentation but before design.

Stakeholder Management Questions: Remember that successful verification requires appropriate stakeholder involvement and communication.

Conclusion

Verify Requirements is essential to requirements analysis and directly impacts project success. For the CBAP exam, focus on understanding the purpose and methods of verification, the quality criteria being assessed, and how verification differs from related processes. Recognize that verification is a stakeholder-involved process that ensures requirements quality before implementation begins. Practice applying verification concepts to scenario-based questions and you will be well-prepared for this exam domain.