How to Efficiently Create and Manage Requirements in Jira with RTM

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Effective requirements management is the foundation of successful product development. While the requirements tree structure in RTM (Requirements and Test Management app) helps organize your work, a well-defined process for gathering, defining, and refining requirements ensures you build the right solutions - efficiently and across teams.

Discover a proven process for managing requirements for new functionalities, supported by practical insights from enterprise projects.

Learn:

• how to define, structure, and refine requirements effectively

• what roles and steps are typically involved

• best practices and customer use cases to avoid common pitfalls.
  
  

➡️Identify user needs and build the roadmap

Who’s involved: Product manager

Every requirement begins with a user need. The Product manager is responsible for identifying these needs and translating them into product goals. This step lays the foundation for the product roadmap and helps align the team around a shared understanding of the problem to solve.

Key sources of information are:

• Customer feedback from the support or customer portal

• User research and interviews

• Insights from internal product usage

• Trends in the market and competitor benchmarks

💡Tip: Document high-level product goals in RTM as parent requirements - this helps you connect user value with implementation scope later on.

➡️Define the Scope of the Functionality

Who’s involved: Product manager, UX designer

Once a user need is identified, the next step is to define the scope of the feature. This includes outlining key functionality, dependencies, and any constraints. UX designers often contribute mockups or user flows that support functional discussions.

At this stage, teams typically:

• organize group workshops or brainstorming sessions to generate ideas.
• review potential edge cases and scenarios.
• discuss solution alternatives and feasibility.
  
  

💡Tip: Break down large features into smaller, manageable requirements. In RTM, you can create a folder structure that reflects different modules or areas of functionality.

➡️Create technical tasks for development

Who’s involved: Development team

Once the scope is defined and agreed upon, the team creates technical tasks for implementation. These tasks often include both frontend and backend development, testing, and DevOps activities.

Tasks are typically written as:

• epics or stories in Jira.
• linked to RTM Requirements to ensure traceability.
  
  

💡Tip: Use RTM’s traceability features to connect Requirements with related Test Cases and Jira issues - this ensures full coverage and simplifies audits.

➡️Estimate and prioritize work

Who’s involved: Scrum master or Product team

During refinement or sprint planning, the team estimates the implementation effort and assigns priorities based on business value, dependencies, and delivery timelines. The prioritized work is added to the product backlog for execution in future sprints.

💡Tip: Use requirement statuses and custom fields in RTM to track progress from initial draft to approved, estimated, and delivered stages.