BEYOND SOUTH AFRICAN SUSTAINABILITY: THE INNOVATION OF EFFECTIVE REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT

It is no secret that South Africa, die to a multitude of events within its economy within the recent years, stands at a rather crucial juncture, as the republic has found itself struggling and flailing to achieve and balance economic growth, social and cultural equality and environmental sustainability; more so through and within its built-environment initiatives and developments.

Well, this vision for developing a circular South African economy through sustainable developments is not just merely a whimsical gimmick of South African politics, it is the main focus and critical imperative of the sustainable global community development agenda. Despite embracing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) aimed at achieving sustainability, the South African Construction Industry (SACI) requires an innovative project scope management approach rooted in effective Requirements Management to successfully integrate these SDGs into the complex South African Built-Environment (SABE) landscape.

As this is a discipline that ensures that projects are aligned with an organization’s internal and external stakeholder needs, and long-term sustainability of the project; we will, in this blog article attempt to analyze how innovative Requirements Management practices and systems can launch the SACI into achieving more innovative, sustainable and SDGs-compliant developments and future.

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VISION 2030: A UNITED-NATIONS REQUIREMENT AND A SOUTH AFRICAN COMMITMENT

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With both South Africa’s 2030 National Development Plan (NDP) and the SDGs speaking to each other and striving to achieve high levels of innovation and sustainability in South African initiatives, projects and businesses by 2030; South Africa has displayed a remarkable commitment to both the NDP and SDGs by making significant efforts within its development requirements and national policies.

Considering South Africa’s extremely diverse community, outspoken nature, and its economic, social and political obstacles; South African developers have quickly recognized the public as crucial external stakeholders to their initiatives and projects, developing approaches and systems that account for and manage their requirements alongside with the internal stakeholder’s requirements. But what exactly is Requirements Management? (Kumar, 2006) describes Requirements Management as more than a box-ticking, and document collection activity; but rather as a set of project management processes and systems that are developed and implemented in a project to continuously (throughout the project’s lifecycle) ensure that the stakeholders’ strategic needs align with the project’s economic, social and governance objectives and deliverables.

Although based off ( Project Management Institute , 2021)’s project management standards, there is no standardized Requirements Management system, with most frameworks and practices being personalized to the organization or specific project. However, with South Africa’s commitment to the SDGs, we can analyze the importance and impact of effective Requirements Management through the Voluntary National Review (VNR) system, a crucial national Requirements Management system and framework that identifies, manages, tracks and reviews: public and private stakeholder requirements, development progress and areas of improvement in relation to the country’s SDGs initiatives and projects with regards to the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda ( United Nations , 2019). However, this does raise the question: Despite all these actions and efforts to develop innovate Requirements Management systems and practices, how can innovative Requirements Management contribute to the achievement of a circular economy and sustainable developments, especially within the South African landscape?

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INNOVATIVE DIVERSITY OF REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT

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Taking into accounting (Kumar, 2006) ‘s definition of Requirements Management, ( IBM ,2021) argues the importance of innovative Requirements Management as a system that ensures sustainable scope management and a healthy project maturity by managing generally overlooked issues that could result in project scope creep. ( Project Management Institute , 2021) further identifies types of requirements present in almost every project as:

• Organizational Requirements: These are the organization’s strategic requirements that result in projects being undertaken; essentially the core reason as to the existence of the projects within an organization.
• Project Requirements: These are project activity or process specific requirements that need to be met in order for the project to be considered a success.
• Stakeholder Requirements: As the organization is not the only party involved in the development of projects, internal and external stakeholders are crucial to the successful development of a project. Whilst the project is mutual, the needs of the stakeholders might differ, but all still require adequate management.
• Functional Requirements: These are the requirements that describe the interactions, data and behaviors of the product the project is aimed at developing.
• Non-Functional Requirements: These are supplementary requirements that support functional requirements. These deal with the qualities and conditions of the product’s environment that have an influence on the success or failure of the product’s development.
• Quality Requirements: These are project / product quality related criteria that is necessary for the successful achievement of the project / product deliverables and / or other requirements.
• Transition Requirements: These are the various requirements that are necessary to successfully move a project from one state / phase into the next state / phase.
• Solutions Requirements:? These are the functional and non-functional project/product requirements that need to be addressed in order for the project/product’s organizational and stakeholder needs to be met.

Projects, especially within the built environment, are extremely intricate and although project managers mainly seem to focus on project scope management as the most crucial aspect, the development of an accurate scope is highly depended on a thorough identification, management and understanding of the above-mentioned list of requirements. As we delve deeper, let’s analyze the importance of Requirements Management through three (3) of its innovative functions, namely: Strategic Stakeholder Alignment, Sustainability Integration, and Anticipated Risk Management.

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STRATEGIC STAKEHOLDER ALIGNMENT

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The first and arguably the most crucial innovative function of Requirements Management, Strategic Stakeholder Alignment requires the development of methods and systems of creatively identifying and engaging internal-and-external project stakeholders, understanding their strategic visions and objective goals as means of developing mutual project goals, strategies and success criteria. Now within the SACI, conflicts and misunderstandings between stakeholders are a norm of project developments showing the crucial urgency and need to implement innovative Requirements Management systems and practices within organizations and projects (Amoah & Nkosazana, 2023).

Utilizing Requirements Management as a strategic stakeholder alignment tool is argued to allow project managements the capacity and capability to adequately understand and integrate the various direct and indirect requirements of both internal and external stakeholders early within the project’s conceptual planning phases; this therefore allows the project’s scope planning and designs to develop in a manner that maximizes project resources whilst minimizing the possibility of scope creep, project delays and stakeholder conflicts as the project matures through the establishment of a more proactive and sustainable stakeholder network that is willing to support and sponsor the project throughout its lifecycle.

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INNOVATIVE SUSTAINABILITY INTEGRATION

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With the global environment emphasizing the need for projects to embed sustainability principles within their development goals; Requirements Management enables projects to become sources of economic, social and environmental sustainability through their resources, practices, and deliverables within all phases of their lifecycle.

As Requirements Management identifies strategic advantages within the different project phases and its influencers, it provides a holistic approach to innovating scope management and sustainability integration, viewing sustainability as an integral part of scope development and management rather than just an environmental regulations deliverable and compliance issue.

PROACTIVE RISK ANTICIPATION

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As the age old saying goes, ‘Prevention is better than cure!’. Knowing all your possible risks and issues (direct and indirect) is an essential part of successful project development. Although Scope Management plans do identify scope-related risks and issues; Requirements Management goes a step further, allowing project managers to produce sustainably resilient and adaptable project scope and process management systems through requirement-based scenario planning and predictive analysis techniques that help with the effective risk anticipation and management stemming from the various project, stakeholder and organizational requirements and their impacts.

As built-environment projects often have multiple stakeholders all with their own independent organizational, strategic and operational requirements; Requirements Management is the perfect tool for the implementation of a project management system that identifies and plans for the mitigation and avoidance of adverse risks hidden within requirements of which can result in the failure of a project.

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A CIRCULAR SOUTH AFRICAN ECONOMY AND REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS

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As it is gathering more attention and gaining prominence as a crucial function with project scope management, the effect of innovative Requirements Management on achieving sustainable South African developments has become more evident. Obviously, Requirements Management plays a pivotal role within the transformation of the South African economy into a circular economy within its waste management sector (Godfrey, et al., 2022).

As rising levels both organic and inorganic municipal waste in addition to diminishing landfill airspace has been a growing concern within the country, the application of this function into waste management projects has led to the development of high value Waste-to-Energy (WtE) initiatives through the holistic understanding, incorporation and innovative management of stakeholder and community requirements. This has resulted in the successful development waste management initiatives that are not only sustainable and resource efficient, but that are socially acceptable, contributing to building a circular South African economy through utilizing waste as a secondary resource.

Another industry that has seen an increased implementation and integration of Requirements Management as a foundational function of its project management is the South African Science and Technology Industry (SASTI)?( Department of Science, Technology and Innovation , 2019). Facing a challenge to align, adapt to, and improve South Africa’s sustainable development trajectory and efforts, this industry has identified the crucial role of understanding and managing direct, indirect, internal and external requirements that influence its projects. As projects within this industry thrive off mutual corporation and strategic investments from both internal and external stakeholders, the adoption of Requirements Management is argued to have enabled this industry to bringing forth some of South Africa’s most innovative solutions and initiatives, launching the SASTI into being one of South Africa’s most active contributors to social well-being, economic growth and technological advancements.

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CONCLUSION

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However, it is quite evident from the lack of standardized Requirements Management frameworks, tools, and systems and their mandatory implementation that this project management function is still within its infancy stage, holding a lot of untapped potential. As projects mature throughout their life cycle, requirements, conditions and environments are prone to change and evolve accordingly arguing the need for systems and tools that can efficiently and effectively track and manage these changes and their resultant impacts in a manner that does compromise the project.

Afterall, innovative Requirements Management is more than a luxury that you can take or leave, it is a crucial foundational necessity of effective scope and project management. Arguably, Requirements Management is the first step in achieving projects that propel South Africa into achieving all of its SDG’s initiatives. A mandatory requirement in itself, Requirements Management is an innovative catalyst for successful, profitable and sustainable developments.

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REFERENCES

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Amoah, C. & Nkosazana, H., 2023. Effective management strategies for construction contract disputes. International Journal of Building Pathology and Adaptation, 41(6), pp. 70-84.

Department: Science and Technolgy, 2019. White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation. [Online] Available at: https://www.dst.gov.za/images/2019/WHITE_PAPER_ON_SCIENCE_AND_TECHNOLOGY_web.pdf [Accessed 16 June 2024].

Godfrey, L. et al., 2022. Transitioning to a Circular Economy in South Africa: The Role of Innovation in Driving Greater Waste Valorization. Industrial Ecology and Environmental Management, Volume 2, pp. 153-176.

IBM, 2021. What is requirements management?. [Online] Available at: https://www.ibm.com/topics/what-is-requirements-management [Accessed 16 June 2024].

Kumar, V. S., 2006. Effective requirements management. Madrid, Project Management Institute.

Project Management Institute, 2021. The Standard for Project Management and A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK Guide). 7th ed. Newtown Square(Pennsylvania): Project Management Institute.

United Nations, 2019. South Africa’s Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Voluntary National Review (VNR) Report, s.l.: s.n.

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