FeaturePlan

FeaturePlan


Requirements Management Tools

Not all requirements management tools are alike

FeaturePlan is a requirements management tool. Does that mean it’s the same thing as “traditional” requirements management software like Telelogic DOORS, Rational RequisitePro, and Borland CaliberRM?  No. 

Development-driven requirements management software packages allow you to take a requirement and assign it to a specific version of the product under development. Once it’s there, you can track it all the way into development as code gets written and tested.

The product management team, however, doesn’t always get neatly defined product requirements that plug right into one of their products.  More often, they get raw data from the field that needs analysis and perspective.  Labeling raw data - like an enhancement request for “better user interface” - a requirement is a mistake, and poorly defined requirements are the primary cause of project failures.

An effective product management team makes sense of all the market input first, and only then turns it into a Market Requirements Document (MRD).  Now it’s ready for handoff to the development-driven requirements management tools. 

Product requirements - the key to strategic value-add

The definition, analysis and prioritization of product requirements is the product manager’s strategic value-add to the organization. And it’s even more important when working with a portfolio of products.

Development-driven requirements management software packages don’t support this analytical function, which occurs well “upstream” of development. FeaturePlan does, and it helps product management make better strategic product decisions.  

The FeaturePlan requirements management process works like this:

  1. Collect up to nine different types of information from the market and customers
  2. Analyze the data to identify market problems and customer needs
  3. Define valid product requirements and features
  4. Prioritize them, based on business opportunities and alignment with corporate strategy
  5. Hand-off the Market Requirements Document to the development team

The FeaturePlan API enables integration with development-driven requirements management software packages, so only clearly defined requirements are available to downstream stakeholders like developers and testers.

“Although numerous requirements management tools exist, few meet the needs of product managers in providing links from the market problem you are trying to solve right through to the finished release. Using FeaturePlan not only makes this possible it also challenges us to think about new ways we can solve problems and makes us focus truly on delivering value to our customers.”

Alex Whittaker
Product Manager, Sales & Trading Products
Reuters

Learn more:
Watch our 5-minute demo
Schedule a private demo
Download the product overview

Latest blog posts on product management from the Product Management View