Glossary · Requirements and interfaces
Stakeholder requirement
Also known as: Stakeholder need
German: Stakeholder-Anforderung
In systems engineering, a stakeholder requirement is a stakeholder need or expectation that may require refinement before it is technically verifiable. It is expressed in the stakeholder's terms and is the origin of derived system requirements.
- Systems engineering
- Verification
In one sentence
A stakeholder requirement captures a need in the stakeholder's own terms; it usually has to be refined into verifiable system requirements.
Example
A plant operator states: “Maintenance staff must be able to change the cutting blade of the slitter safely without special tools.” Engineers refine this into system requirements for guards, energy isolation and blade handling.
How it applies
- Requirements: Keep stakeholder requirements in their original wording and trace each derived system requirement back to them.
- Validation: Validation checks the result against stakeholder requirements and intended use; verification checks it against system requirements.
- Machine safety: Stakeholders include operators, maintenance staff and cleaners, not only the buyer. Their tasks are a key input for intended use and foreseeable misuse.
- Technical documentation: Needs of documentation users (languages, formats, skill levels) are stakeholder requirements for the information for use.
Stakeholder requirement vs. system requirement
A stakeholder requirement states what someone needs; it may be vague or unmeasurable. A system requirement is the derived, verifiable statement of what the system must do or achieve to meet that need.