Managing Requirements: For an Integrated Approach from System Engineering to Project Management

This paper puts forward several evolutions in methodological approaches to "project management". Firstly, it aims to bring closer the founding models of different engineering approaches including systems engineering and project management recommendations to allow for a greater continuity and enhanced management coherence, from beginning to end of the project. It focuses on operating a generic process, called DECWAYS, based on handling management requirements: (1) analyze the requirements to arrive at a complete inventory of the final product ;(2) associate with each one of these requirements, an "indicator" setting a target objective for completion, supplemented by a risk function detailing the risk at hand based on the deviation relative to this target objective; (3) share and allocate the responsibility for requirements follow-up between the project team leaders; (4) organize and coordinate the follow-up of these indicators throughout the product development as proof of a good work management and,(5) finally, validate the total completion of the target objectives through the final prediction/completion conformity of these indicators. Based on this, several operational recommendations are explained and the practicality of DECWAYS embodying these principles is demonstrated using an experimental example for the design/planning of an electronic key.