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Requirements gathering
Requirements gathering is the process of collecting the needs and expectations for a product from stakeholders, users, and other sources at the start of a project. It is the front-end work of finding out what people want a system to do, and it feeds directly into analyzing and writing the requirements.
What it means
Requirements gathering is where a project's understanding of the problem begins to form. It pulls together input from many places: interviews with users, conversations with stakeholders, existing documents, current systems, and market or regulatory expectations. The aim is breadth first, making sure no important source or need is left out before the harder work of analysis and prioritization begins.
The term is often used interchangeably with elicitation, though the two carry a slightly different mindset. 'Gathering' can imply that requirements are lying around waiting to be collected, when in reality the best ones usually have to be actively drawn out. Whatever you call it, doing it thoroughly early is far cheaper than discovering a missed need once the product is built.
In practice
At the start of a payroll system project, an analyst gathers requirements from HR staff, finance, employees, and the existing spreadsheets everyone secretly relies on. That last source surfaces a set of edge-case rules nobody mentioned in the formal interviews, which would have caused painful bugs if left out.
FAQ
What is the difference between requirements gathering and elicitation?
What are good sources for gathering requirements?
Manage requirements the modern way
Modern Requirements brings documentation, traceability, and reviews together inside Azure DevOps.
