CAPM Practice: Validate requirements through product delivery

Verification ('Did we build the thing right?') checks conformance to specifications. Validation ('Did we build the right thing?') checks that the solution delivers real business value. A product can pass verification and fail validation — built exactly to spec, but the spec was wrong.

**Why not A:** Verification and validation are not synonyms. They address fundamentally different questions: verification asks "Did we build it right?" (conformance to specifications), while validation asks "Did we build the right thing?" (meeting actual business needs). Conflating them risks missing important quality gaps.

**Why not C:** Both verification and validation involve multiple roles, not just QA and the BA respectively. Verification may involve developers, testers, and QA. Validation may involve users, stakeholders, and the BA. The distinction is about what is being assessed, not who performs the assessment.

**Why not D:** The timing described is incorrect. Verification occurs during and after development (checking against specs), while validation can occur at multiple points including during development (through prototypes and reviews) and after delivery (through UAT and production feedback). Neither is confined to a single phase.