Requirement Specification Lifecycle

Preliminary

A Requirement Specification is created in the Preliminary state. The owner or Requirement Manager must create and check in the files for the specification. Comments, Chapters, and Requirements can be added and edited as needed. The specification can be promoted to Draft when ready.

Draft

Comments, Chapters, and Requirements can be added and edited as needed. The specification can be promoted to Review when ready.

Review

The Requirement Specification can be reviewed by the appropriate people. When all needed information has been incorporated, the Requirements Manager can promote the specification to the Release state.

Release

Each Chapter or Comment in the Requirement Specification structure must be in the Release state before the Requirement Specification itself can be promoted to the Release state. If the Requirement Specification is demoted from this state, all Chapters and Comments, and any child Chapters and Comments in the structure that comprise the specification are also demoted to the Active state.

If all child chapters and comments are in Release, then the Chapter will automatically be promoted to Release. However, if a branch in the Requirement Specification tree contains a Requirement, the Requirement will not be promoted (must be specifically promoted) and the specification is not promoted.

When a Requirement Specification is in the Release state, its content is frozen. To make changes, the specification must be revised.

Obsolete

In this state, the Requirement Specification is considered obsolete and cannot be connected to any objects. When promoted to Obsolete, the Requirement Specification is not a baseline anymore (you should have a different specification to use as the baseline). You cannot demote the Requirement Specification from Obsolete to Release.