Project Toolkit

Business Requirements

Business Requirements

Capturing and documenting business needs, goals, and objectives that drive the project.

Business Requirements

Business requirements describe what the organisation needs to achieve its goals, independent of any specific solution.

What are Business Requirements?

Definition: Business requirements are high-level statements of the goals, objectives, and needs of the organisation that a project must address.

Business requirements describe the what and why, not the how.

Types of Requirements

Type Focus Example
Business Organisational goals “Reduce order processing time by 50%”
Stakeholder User needs “Sales team needs mobile access”
Functional System behaviour “System shall calculate tax automatically”
Non-functional Quality attributes “System must be available 99.9%”

Characteristics of Good Requirements

Good business requirements are:

Characteristic Description
Clear Unambiguous and understandable
Complete Contains all necessary information
Consistent Does not conflict with other requirements
Testable Can be verified when implemented
Traceable Linked to business objectives
Prioritised Ranked by importance

Capturing Business Requirements

Sources

  • Stakeholder interviews
  • Workshops and focus groups
  • Document analysis
  • Process observation
  • Surveys and questionnaires

Key Questions

  • What problem are we solving?
  • What outcomes are needed?
  • Who are the stakeholders?
  • What constraints exist?
  • How will success be measured?

Documentation

A Business Requirements Document (BRD) typically includes:

  • Executive summary
  • Business objectives
  • Scope and boundaries
  • Stakeholder needs
  • Assumptions and constraints
  • Success criteria
Last updated: 13 January 2026
Themes

Planning

Analysis