Why we start with requirements
Your costliest defect isn’t in the code. Not yet.
It’s sitting in a requirement somebody almost understood. Caught this week, it costs a conversation. Caught in production, it costs a hundred times more. Requirements engineering catches it while it is still cheap, and Q Lab teaches it end to end.
IREB-accredited pathway · HRD Corp claimable
Frame 01 · 02:00 · the 100× stage
Requirements Engineering
Most software doesn’t fail in code. It fails in the asking.
Requirements engineering is the discipline of asking right: eliciting, documenting and validating what a system must do, before a line of code exists. Below: the same missed requirement, and what it costs to fix at each of the three places you can catch it.
One defect · the same fix at three stages · Boehm’s cost-of-defect multiplier, 1981
Cost to fix here
Analysis · a conversation
Caught in a requirements workshop, it’s a sentence rewritten on a flip chart. The cheapest fix in software.
Cost to fix here
Design · rework
Caught in design, it’s interfaces renegotiated and estimates redone. Ten times the cost, before code exists.
Cost to fix here
Production · an incident
Caught in production, it’s a hotfix, a rollback, a support queue. A hundred times the cost, and the trust to rebuild.
Relative cost to fix the same defect, by the stage it’s caught · never contradicted in four decades.
Q Lab Academy · backed by MSTB
Learn the quality skills that hold up under pressure.
Q Lab trains practitioners in requirements engineering and testing maturity, the disciplines that decide whether a release ships clean or ships late. Internationally recognised CPRE and TMMi pathways, taught by engineers who have done the work.
Recognised training provider for
Exam included in the course fee · public sessions online or in person
The Catalogue
Requirements and testing, done properly.
Whether you’re a business analyst moving into requirements, an agile lead wrestling with scale, or a head of QA building the case for test maturity, there’s a Q Lab programme for you. Every one taught by a senior practitioner, kept to small cohorts.
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3 days · IREB · HRD Corp
CPRE Foundation Level
The IREB CPRE Foundation certification. Elicit, document and validate requirements that survive contact with real projects.
RM 3,200
View course →
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2 days · IREB · HRD Corp
RE@Agile Primer
The IREB RE@Agile Primer certification. Story mapping, example mapping, specification by example.
RM 2,400
View course →
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2 days · IREB · HRD Corp
RE@Agile Practitioner
The IREB RE@Agile Advanced certification. Scale, governance, requirements architecture in agile contexts.
RM 3,800
View course →
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3 days · IREB · HRD Corp
CPRE Requirements Elicitation Practitioner
The IREB Elicitation Practitioner certification. Find the requirements nobody states — sources, techniques, conflict resolution.
RM 3,800
View course →
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2 days · TMMi · HRD Corp
TMMi Professional
The TMMi Professional certification. For QA leads and heads of testing ready to measure and improve the whole function.
RM 3,500
View course →
Why Q Lab
Certifications alone don’t build capability.
Most training gets you a badge. Q Lab gets you a playbook you can put to work straight away. Here’s what that looks like in practice.
01 · Practitioner-led
Taught by working practitioners
Every module is taught by someone who does this work for a living: eliciting requirements and running test maturity assessments across banking, telco and aviation. You’ll leave with practical methods you can use on your next project, not textbook theory.
02 · Globally recognised
IREB and TMMi accredited
Q Lab is accredited to deliver the full IREB CPRE family and the TMMi Professional programme. Your certification is recognised in Malaysia, across ASEAN, and by every employer that takes software quality seriously. Exam included in the course fee, no hidden extras.
03 · HRD Corp claimable
Up to 100% claimable
Every public course is HRD Corp claimable. Train your engineers with the levy your company already contributes: capability goes up, and the training budget stays intact.
Free Webinars
An hour with the trainers, on us.
One-hour online sessions, free and open to everyone. Registration closes 14 days before each date.
The Cost of Confusion
Why requirements are the DNA of quality, and what a misread sentence really costs a release.
Stop Asking, Start Discovering
Three elicitation techniques to uncover the needs your stakeholders can’t articulate.
Is Your Testing Mature or Just Busy?
Scaling quality with TMMi: how mature test organisations spend less and catch more.
Shift-Left 2.0
Integrating requirements engineering and TMMi for zero-defect delivery.
The Cost of Confusion
Why requirements are the DNA of quality, and what a misread sentence really costs a release.
Topics may be refined closer to each date · registration closes 14 days prior
Upcoming public sessions
Training Calendar
Public courses run online or in person at Setiawalk, Puchong, and every public session is HRD Corp claimable.
The Trainers
Trained in the field, certified to teach it.
Senior practitioners: certified to teach, seasoned by delivery.
Every Q Lab course is taught by a practitioner who has done the work: eliciting requirements for core banking systems, running test maturity assessments for telcos, debugging the processes that keep governments, hospitals and airlines shipping. Certification is the baseline. What our trainers bring into the room is the judgement that only comes from more than ten years in production.
Business analysts, product owners, requirements engineers, QA leads and heads of testing: anyone whose job depends on getting what-to-build right. Most sessions deliberately mix roles: the conflicts you practise resolving in class are the ones you meet at work.
No. CPRE Foundation has no prerequisites. The Practitioner-level modules (Requirements Elicitation Practitioner, RE@Agile Practitioner) require the CPRE Foundation certificate first, per IREB’s certification rules.
Yes. IREB CPRE and TMMi are international certifications administered by their global bodies and recognised across markets, and the certificates do not expire.
Yes. Every public course includes the official certification exam. No hidden fees.
Yes. Every public Q Lab course is HRD Corp claimable, up to 100% depending on your levy arrangement. Train your people without burdening the training budget.
Courses run online (live virtual classroom) or in person at Setiawalk, Puchong. The training calendar shows which. Registration closes 14 days before each start date, and in-house delivery can be scoped for whole teams.
Ready when you are
Ready to build capability that sticks?
Pick a public session, or bring Q Lab in-house for your team. Either way, your engineers will ship quality from their next release.
News & Insights
Updates.
Notes from the practice: on requirements, testing, and building capability that lasts.
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Why requirements engineering matters more in the age of AI
AI has made building software fast and cheap. It has not made deciding what to build any easier — it has made it the bottleneck. An introduction to…