Software Engineering

8.6 
Establish the requirements baseline
As the requirements evolve and mature, a requirements baseline should be established 
and maintained to reduce the impact of 
requirements creep
 or continual changes to 
the baseline. Requirements creep implies a tendency for product requirements to 
be modified or supplemented as the solution is being architected and implemented. 
Requirements creep may be driven by a stakeholder’s growing “wish list” or by devel-
opers as they recognize opportunities for improving the solution’s appeal to users.
The requirements baseline represents the 
design-to
 set of requirements. The 
requirements baseline should not be established before the design solution is fairly 
mature and complete since changes to the requirements baseline will impact project 
cost projections and schedule timelines. This is why it is necessary to explore the 
software solution via functional analysis and application design synthesis to ensure 
that the requirements set is complete, consistent, achievable, and affordable.
Once the software product requirements baseline is established, all recom-
mended changes to the requirements must be formally approved by the project 
change control board (CCB). Each proposed change should be documented in an 
engineering change proposal (ECP) with the appropriate specification and docu-
mentation change pages included.

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