The adoption of requirements management in the delivery of refurbishment projects

Briefing process involves the documentation and communication of clients' requirements and represents a cornerstone for achieving client satisfaction. Briefing for refurbishment projects is seen to be more complex than new build because of the associated uncertainty and complexity in refurbishment projects. The inefficiency of the briefing process has long been recognised as an area which needs improvement and requirements management has been identified to help improve the development of client brief through the capturing of client requirements. To efficiently elicit client requirements, appropriate requirements management technique is required. This paper therefore compares the requirements management techniques pertaining to communication issues and explores the applicability of requirements management to the refurbishment sector in the UK construction industry. It is proposed that the adoption of requirements management within the construction industry is fitting, and would particularly benefit project teams working in the refurbishment sector. In addition, to get the best out of each requirements management technique, a combination of techniques should be used for the requirements elicitation process.