To help explain the work involved in the Requirements discipline, the activities and work products are organized into a capability pattern for the discipline.

Each activity represents a high-level goal that needs to be achieved to perform effective requirements management. Analyzing the problem and understanding the stakeholders needs are the primary requirements goals during the Inception phase of a project. During the Elaboration and Construction phases, the emphasis shifts more towards initially defining and subsequently refining the system definition in terms of the detailed requirements. Managing the system scope and ongoing requirements change are addressed continuously throughout the project.

The workflow diagram, shown on the Work Breakdown Structure, shows the activities in a logical, sequential order. These activities are applied continuously in varied order, as needed, throughout the project. The Requirements discipline capability pattern sequences the activities in the order that you would most likely apply them in the first iteration of a new project.