Requirement analysis

This is the first stage of the cycle. Here, the business team (mostly comprised of business analysts) perform a requirement analysis of their project's business needs. The requirements can be internal to the organization, or external, from a customer. This study involves finding the nature and scope of the requirements. With the gathered information, there is a proposal to either improve the system or create a new one. The project cost gets decided, and benefits are laid out. Then the project goals are defined.