Quantifying the impact of requirements definition and management process maturity on project outcome in large business application development

Using data from two surveys of people knowledgeable about requirements for, and the success of the development of, large commercial applications (CAs) in hundreds of large organizations from around the world, this paper reports a high positive correlation between an organization’s requirements definition and management (RDM) maturity and that organization’s successful performance on CA development projects. Among the organizations that responded with a filled survey, an organization that is assessed at a high RDM maturity is significantly more successful in its CA development projects than is an organization that is assessed at a low RDM maturity, when success in CA development projects is measured as (1) delivering CAs on-time, on-budget, and on-function, (2) meeting the business objectives of these projects, and (3) the perceived success of these projects. This paper presents a comprehensive framework for RDM, describes a quality RDM process, and describes RDM maturity and how to measure it. It describes the two surveys, the first of which ended up being a pilot for the second, which was designed taking into account what was learned from the first survey. The paper concludes with advice to practitioners on the application of the RDM maturity framework in any organization that wishes to improve its RDM and its performance in the development of large CAs.