Requirement Attributes are properties of a requirement. Attributes capture important additional information about a requirement. This information can subsequently be used to answer queries about the status of the development project.

Examples of attributes

Below is a list of attributes typically used by small projects, along with a brief description of their meaning. Some attributes are best described as a number, whilst other are best described as a date, a Boolean value (true or false), or a freeform text field. Other attributes can be expressed as enumerated lists. For instance, Priority may have values of High, Medium, or Low.

Priority - Statement of relative importance of the requirement to stakeholders (high, medium, low).

Assigned to - Who in the organization is responsible for making sure the requirement is met (person's name or organizational name).

Target Iteration – The iteration in which the requirement is planned to be implemented (number or text).

Estimation of Size - gives you a high-level estimate for the effort required to implement and verify the requirement, typically measured using a neutral unit such as points. (See Guideline: Agile Estimation for more information).

Effort Remaining – An estimate of the remaining effort to implement and verify the requirement (hours).

Completion Status – The progress of implementing a requirement. This may be captured as an enumerated list (Complete, Partially Completed, Not Started) or can be inferred from the Effort Remaining attribute.

When these attributes are assigned values for each requirement, it becomes easy to answer typical queries about the project such as:

How many requirements are to be implemented in the current iteration?
(Query the Target Iteration attribute)

What percentage of the high priority requirements is currently implemented?
(Query the Completion Status and Priority attributes)

How many requirements assigned to the current iteration remain unimplemented?
(Query the Target Iteration and Completion Status attributes)

Which requirements are assigned to me?
(Query the Assigned To attribute)

Examples of other useful requirements attributes include:

Source - Person, document or other origin of a given requirement. This is useful for determining whom to call for questions or for grouping requirements according to the person making the demands.

Comments - Reviewer's or writer's comments on a requirement.

Difficulty - An indication of the level of effort needed or how hard it will be to implement the requirement (high, medium, low).

Risk - Confidence measure on the likelihood of meeting (or not meeting) a requirement. Could be high, medium, low or the integers one through ten.

Test ID - Identification of a specific test or other method of verification.