Planning · Planning steps
Requirements step
Build the item's requirements on a board, sorted into lanes by your organisation's categorisation model.
Build the item’s requirements on a board, sorted into lanes by your organisation’s categorisation model.
Requirements describe what the item must do. On this step, Next drafts a set of requirements from the overview, the ideas behind the item and its files, and sorts each one into a lane such as Must Have or Should Have. The owner then adds, edits and moves requirements until the board is right, and approves it.
Because every item is sorted the same way, it is easy to compare scope across the portfolio, and the PRD that follows is built on an agreed list.
Before you start
- Open the item from Planning → Portfolio, and select Requirements in the step rail. See Portfolio item.
- The step becomes available once the Overview is approved.
- Only people who can edit requirements on the item, usually its owner, can add, change or move requirements. Everyone else sees the board read-only.
Understanding the board
Each requirement is a card. The board has one lane per category, and the number beside a lane’s name is how many requirements it holds.
The lanes come from the item’s categorisation model. Your organisation sets the default in Governance → Planning → Prioritisation, and the owner can choose another under Configure → Categorisation before generating.
| Model | Lanes |
|---|---|
| MoSCoW | Must Have, Should Have, Could Have, Won’t Have |
| Kano Model | Basic Needs, Performance, Excitement, Indifferent |
| Priority Tiers | Critical (P0), High (P1), Medium (P2), Low (P3) |
| Value vs Effort | Quick Win, Big Bet, Fill-in, Time Sink |
What a card shows
| Item | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Code | The requirement’s short reference, for example REQ-4. |
| Domain chips | The areas the requirement belongs to. Up to two are shown, with a count of any more. |
| Title | What the requirement is. |
| Sources | How many sources the requirement is based on. If it has been edited, this reads Original draft. |
| New or Updated | The requirement was added or changed in this round of planning. |
A green edge on the left of a card marks a requirement added this round; a blue edge marks one that was updated.
Generate the requirements
- Optionally, select Configure to choose the agent packs, the Categorisation model, files and instructions. See Steer what Next drafts.
- Select Generate draft.
Cards appear in their lanes as Next writes them. Lanes still waiting for cards show placeholders.
Add a requirement
- Select the plus button at the top of a lane (Add requirement to top), or Add requirement at the bottom of the lane.
- Describe the requirement in a line.
- Select Create, or press ⌘↵. Press Esc to cancel.
The new card appears in that lane.
Open and edit a requirement
Select a card to open it. The window shows who created or last changed it and when, and lets you edit:
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Title | What the requirement is. |
| Lane | The category it belongs to. Choose another to move it. |
| Domains | The areas it belongs to. Select to add or remove domains. |
| Detail | What the requirement involves, and any constraints on it. |
| Why it’s here | The reasoning behind its categorisation. |
The right-hand side lists the Sources the requirement was drafted from (select one to read it in full) and any Attachments.
Close the window to save your changes.
Move a requirement to another lane
Drag a card to another lane to recategorise it. You can also open the card and change its Lane.
Approve the requirements
- Check every lane.
- Select Approve Requirements in the action bar.
- Read the confirmation. Approving locks the requirements and starts the next step.
- Select Approve Requirements.
Rounds of planning
Planning does not always go in a straight line. When review feedback calls for changes to the requirements, the item starts a new round of planning, called an iteration.
From the second round onwards, an Iteration chip at the top of the board shows which round this is. Cards added or updated in this round are marked New or Updated, so you can see what changed. A requirement changed by review feedback shows Updated in review or Added in review. Select it to see what changed, whose feedback it came from and which round.
The item’s Activity history keeps a record of every round. See Read the item’s history.
What happens next
- The requirements become read-only once approved.
- The next step, usually the PRD, becomes the current step. Next uses the approved requirements when it drafts the PRD. See PRD step.
- The Portfolio list’s Requirements column shows how many requirements are fully defined.
Good to know
- A workflow can have more than one Requirements step, for example one for security. Each appears separately in the step rail.
- If you open a requirement from a direct link, it opens on a page of its own, where you can also see its status, acceptance criteria and attachments.