This Requirements Documentation example shows how Alex Morgan, PMP, captured and structured all stakeholder requirements for Project Phoenix — a $72,250 website launch managed using the PMBOK Guide 8th Edition. Requirements documentation is where project scope gets its substance: vague ideas like "we need a better website" are transformed into specific, testable, traceable requirements that the entire team can build against.

What Is Requirements Documentation?

Requirements Documentation is the formal record of all requirements gathered from project stakeholders — business requirements, functional requirements, non-functional requirements, and any applicable regulatory or sustainability requirements. In PMBOK 8, requirements documentation is an output of the Collect Requirements process within the Planning Performance Domain. It provides the foundation for scope definition, acceptance criteria development, test planning, and ultimately the formal validation that the delivered product meets stakeholder needs. Requirements documentation should be traceable (each requirement linked to its source and to acceptance criteria) and prioritized (using a method like MoSCoW to guide trade-off decisions).

What's Inside This Requirements Documentation Example

This Requirements Documentation example for Project Phoenix includes:

• Business requirements: increase qualified lead capture by 40% within 12 months, reduce homepage bounce rate from 67% to below 50%, achieve mobile-first performance with PageSpeed ≥90 on mobile
• Stakeholder requirements: 24 requirements gathered from 8 stakeholders via individual interviews (Riley Park, Maya Chen, and 4 MCG department heads) and a facilitated requirements workshop on March 11–12, 2025
• Functional requirements: 14 specific features including contact form with CRM routing, blog with category filtering, services pages with case study integration, careers page, cookie consent (GDPR-compliant), and multilingual navigation (English only in Phase 1)
• Non-functional requirements: PageSpeed ≥90 desktop and mobile, 99.9% uptime SLA, HTTPS enforced, WCAG 2.1 AA compliance, page load time under 2 seconds on standard broadband
• ESG requirements: green hosting provider (renewable energy certified), accessibility-first design, GDPR cookie consent framework, and remote-capable content management
• MoSCoW prioritization: 8 Must-Have, 6 Should-Have, 4 Could-Have, 2 Won't-Have (this release) — requirements traceability matrix linking each requirement to WBS work package and acceptance criterion

How Alex Morgan Used This Requirements Documentation

Alex Morgan finalized the Requirements Documentation on March 14, 2025 — three days before project kickoff — and obtained written approval from Riley Park the same day. This timing was deliberate: having approved requirements before kickoff meant that BrightFrame's first design brief could reference specific, approved requirements rather than general stakeholder opinions. When the content team proposed adding a resources library during Week 4, Alex was able to check it against the approved requirements and confirm it was a Could-Have item that required a formal change request if it was to be in-scope. The requirements document prevented three potential scope additions during the project's execution phase.

Download and Customize

This Requirements Documentation example is available as a free download. Use it as a reference to build your own requirements document, or start with the blank template and fill it in for your project.

• Download the Requirements Documentation Template — PMBOK 8 (blank, ready to use)
• Read the article: Requirements Documentation in PMBOK 8 — Guide and Best Practices

Requirements Documentation Example: Key Takeaways

The most important lesson from this Requirements Documentation example is that the MoSCoW prioritization is not just an organizational tool — it is a decision-making framework for the entire project. When ISS-007 (load test failure) required additional development work in Period 5, Alex Morgan referred to the requirements document to confirm that the PageSpeed and load time requirements were Must-Have items that could not be compromised. This gave Tom Nguyen the authority to hold the go-live date until performance criteria were met, rather than being pressured to accept a substandard result. Well-written requirements give project teams the clarity and confidence to make difficult calls.

Want to go deeper? The PMBOK Guide 8th Edition is the definitive reference for modern project management. Get your copy and use it alongside these examples to build a solid, practical understanding of every performance domain.