Requirements Tree Diagram: Comparison with Traditional Approach of Gathering Requirements

Traditional approach of gathering requirements widely uses bulky paragraphs to detail out the requirements. Such bulky paragraphs leads to confusion (and misunderstanding of requirement) if the writer and reader both are not having common understanding.

Many times traditional approach of gathering requirements captures the requirements on first come first basis. Requirements are not arranged systematically. So there is always a requirements traceability problem in traditional approach. However Requirements Tree Diagram, due to its tree structure, provides inbuilt traceability for requirements.

In traditional approach there is always a possibility of same requirement being described at multiple places. This is very dangerous as in case of modification of requirement, such situation may lead to inconsistency in requirement. However Requirements Tree Diagram, with its unique tree structure, rules out the possibility of capturing one requirement at multiple places.

Due to lack of systematic approach in gathering requirements in traditional approach, there is always a possibility of missing out any requirement or not capturing all the details of a particular requirement. But Requirements Tree Diagram with its wide range of constructs encourages user to capture every aspect of requirements and also persuades capturing all the possible inputs, processing logic and desired output for every requirement.

With top-down approach, Requirements Tree Diagram provides user a direction in which requirements can be captured reducing the efforts involved in capturing the requirements.

Requirements Tree Diagram encourages capturing every aspect of requirements. Alsoin captures requirements in diagram form rather than in bulky paragraphs. This drastically increases the clarity of requirements during requirements gathering phase itself reducing the chances of change requests in requirements in the later stage of implementation. Clarity in requirements also helps in accurate estimation of efforts required for implementing the requirements.