Many project management headaches, including resources, budget, timing, and scope, originate prior to the project even starting. During the Request for Quotation (RFQ) phase for a development program, solution providers focus on the financials of the potential program – submitting a competitive quote while maintaining an acceptable profit margin. Yet they leave one of their most powerful tools, a robust Requirements Management process, sitting in their toolbox until after the project has kicked off – when it’s often too late.
This presentation will describe a specific Requirements Management framework to be used during RFQ phase to allow suppliers to be more effective in quoting a program. A streamlined setup leads to more efficient tool use and reduces resource intensity during this phase. Crucially, it minimizes the time required of subject matter experts (SMEs), freeing them from expending excessive effort on a proposal that may not be accepted. Attributes such as Maturity, Complexity, and Allocation are used to categorize requirements and focus on to the most resource-intensive aspects of development, resulting in accurate projections for non-recurring engineering costs (NRE), test and lab resources, hiring needs, and development time. Negotiations with the customer can include specific requirements, helping define a realistic scope that all parties are comfortable with and will actually be achieved on-time and on-budget. Equally important, the supplier will be establishing the groundwork for the entire product development process to demonstrate Automotive SPICE (ASPICE) capability.