Requirements Elicitation

Ebrahim Karami
ENGI-9838
Software Engineering Practice
Winter 2024
Outline
 Today:
 Motivation: Software Lifecycle
 Requirements elicitation challenges
 Problem statement
 Requirements specification
 Types of requirements
 Validating requirements
 Software Lifecycle Definition
 Software lifecycle
 Models for the development of software
 Set of activities and their dependency relationships to each
other to support the development of a software system
 Examples:
 Analysis, design, implementation, testing
 Design depends on analysis, testing can be done before
implementation
A Typical Example
of Software Lifecycle Activities

Requirements System Detailed Implemen-

Analysis Testing
Elicitation Design Design tation
Software Lifecycle Activities
...and their models

Requirements System Detailed Implemen-

Analysis Testing
Elicitation Design Design tation

Use Case
Model
Software Lifecycle Activities
...and their models

Requirements System Detailed Implemen-

Analysis Testing
Elicitation Design Design tation

Expressed in
terms of

Use Case Application

Model Domain
Objects
Software Lifecycle Activities
...and their models

Requirements System Detailed Implemen-

Analysis Testing
Elicitation Design Design tation

Expressed in Structured
terms of by

Use Case Application

Domain Sub-
Model
Objects systems
Software Lifecycle Activities
...and their models

Requirements System Detailed Implemen-

Analysis Testing
Elicitation Design Design tation

Expressed in Structured
Realized by
terms of by

Use Case Application Solution

Domain Sub-
Model Domain
Objects systems
Objects
Software Lifecycle Activities
...and their models

Requirements System Detailed Implemen-

Analysis Testing
Elicitation Design Design tation

Implemented by
Expressed in Structured
Realized by
terms of by

class...
class...
class...
Use Case Application Solution
Domain Sub- Source
Model Domain
Objects systems Code
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Software Lifecycle Activities
...and their models

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Analysis Testing
Elicitation Design Design tation

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Realized by Verified
terms of by
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 What is the best Software Lifecycle?
 Typical Lifecycle questions:
 Which activities should I select when I develop software?
 What are the dependencies between activities?
 How should I schedule the activities?
 For now we assume we have a set of predefined activities:
 Requirements Elicitation, Analysis, System Design, Detailed Design,
Implementation, Testing
 Today we focus on the activity Requirements Elicitation.
 Software Lifecycle Activities
Requirements System Detailed Implemen-
Analysis Testing
Elicitation Design Design tation

Implemented
Expressed in By
Structured By Realized By
Terms Of Verified
By

class...
class...
class... ?
class.... ?
Use Case Application Solution
Domain Subsystems Source Test
Model Domain
Objects Code Case Model
Objects
First step in identifying the Requirements:
System identification
 Two questions need to be answered:
1. How can we identify the purpose of a system?
 What are the requirements, what are the constraints?
2. What is inside, what is outside the system?
 These two questions are answered during requirements elicitation
and analysis
 Requirements elicitation:
 Definition of the system in terms understood by the customer
and/or user (“Requirements specification”)
 Analysis:
 Definition of the system in terms understood by the developer (Technical
specification, “Analysis model”)
 Requirements Process: Consists of the activities Requirements
Elicitation and Analysis.
Techniques to elicit Requirements
 Bridging the gap between end user and developer:
 Questionnaires: Asking the end user a list of pre-selected
questions
 Task Analysis: Observing end users in their operational
environment
 Scenarios: Describe the use of the system as a series of
interactions between a specific end user and the system
 Use cases: Abstractions that describe a class of scenarios.
 Scenarios
 Scenario
 “that which is pinned to the scenery“ (Italian)
 A synthetic description of an event or series of actions and events
 A textual description of the usage of a system. The description is
written from an end user’s point of view
 A scenario can include text, video, pictures and story boards. It
usually also contains details about the work place, social situations
and resource constraints.
More Definitions
 Scenario: “A narrative description of what people do and
experience as they try to make use of computer systems and
applications”
 [M. Carroll, Scenario-Based Design, Wiley, 1995]
 A concrete, focused, informal description of a single feature
of the system used by a single actor
 Scenario become the basis of interaction for a new design or
allow better understanding of the new design.
Scenario-Based Design
Scenarios can have many different uses during the software
lifecycle
 Requirements Elicitation: As-is scenario, visionary scenario
 Client Acceptance Test: Evaluation scenario
 System Deployment: Training scenario
Scenario-Based Design: The use of scenarios in a software
lifecycle activity
 Scenario-based design is iterative
 Each scenario should be consisered as a work document to be
augmented and rearranged (“iterated upon”) when the
requirements, the client acceptance criteria or the deployment
situation changes.
 Scenario-based Design

 Focuses on concrete descriptions and particular instances, not

abstract generic ideas
 It is work driven not technology driven
 It is open-ended, it does not try to be complete
 It is informal, not formal and rigorous
 Is about envisioned outcomes, not about specified outcomes.
Types of Scenarios
 As-is scenario:
 Describes a current situation. Commonly used in re-engineering
projects. The user describes the system
 Example: Description of Letter-Chess
 Visionary scenario:
 Describes a future system
 Example: Home Computer of the Future
 Often used in greenfield engineering and interface engineering
projects
 Example: Description of an interactive internet-based Tic Tac Toe game
tournament
 Visionary scenarios are often not done by the user or developer
alone.
Additional Types of Scenarios (2)
 Evaluation scenario:
 Description of a user task against which the system is to be
evaluated.
 Example: Four users (two novice, two experts) play in a TicTac Toe
tournament in ARENA.
 Training scenario:
 A description of the step by step instructions that guide a novice
user through a system
 Example: How to play Tic Tac Toe in the ARENA Game Framework.
How do we find scenarios?
 Don’t expect the client to be verbose if the system does not
exist
 Client understands the application domain (problem domain),
not the solution domain
 Don’t wait for information even if the system exists
 “What is obvious does not need to be said”
 Engage in a dialectic approach
 You help the client to formulate the requirements
 The client helps you to understand the requirements
 The requirements evolve while the scenarios are being
developed.
 Heuristics for finding scenarios
 Ask yourself or the client the following questions:
 What are the primary tasks that the system needs to perform?
 What data will the actor create, store, change, remove or add in the
system?
 What external changes does the system need to know about?
 What changes or events will the actor of the system need to be
informed about?
 However, don’t rely on questions and questionnaires alone
 Insist on task observation if the system already exists (interface
engineering or reengineering)
 Ask to speak to the end user, not just to the client
 Expect resistance and try to overcome it.
Scenario example: Warehouse on Fire
 Bob, driving down main street in his patrol car notices smoke coming out of a
warehouse. His partner, Alice, reports the emergency from her car.
 Alice enters the address of the building into her wearable computer , a brief
description of its location (i.e., north west corner), and an emergency level.
 She confirms her input and waits for an acknowledgment;
 John, the dispatcher, is alerted to the emergency by a beep of his workstation.
He reviews the information submitted by Alice and acknowledges the report.
He allocates a fire unit and sends the estimated arrival time (ETA) to Alice.
 Alice received the acknowledgment and the ETA..
Observations about the Warehouse on
Fire Scenario
 It is a concrete scenario
 It describes a single instance of reporting a fire incident
 It does not describe all possible situations in which a fire can be
reported

 Participating actors
 Bob, Alice and John.
 After the scenarios are formulated
 Find all the use cases in the scenario that specify all instances of how
to report a fire
 Example from the Warehouse on Fire scenario:
 “Bob… notices smoke coming out of a warehouse. His partner, Alice, reports the emergency from
her car”
 “Report Emergency“is a candidate for a use case
 Describe each of these use cases in more detail
 Participating actors
 Describe the entry condition
 Describe the flow of events
 Describe the exit condition
 Describe exceptions
 Describe nonfunctional requirements
 The set of all use cases is the basis for the Functional Model(see next
lecture)
Requirements Elicitation: Difficulties
and Challenges
 Accurate communication about the domain and the system
 People with different backgrounds must collaborate to bridge
the gap between end users and developers
 Client and end users have application domain knowledge
 Developers have solution domain knowledge

 Identification of an appropriate system (Definition of the

system boundary)
 Provision of an unambiguous specification
 Leaving out unintended features
=> 3 Examples.
Defining the System Boundary is difficult
What do you see here?
Defining the System Boundary is difficult
What do you see now?
Defining the System Boundary is difficult
Sometimes the system boundaries are somewhere else
 Example of an Ambiguous
Specification
During an experiment, a laser beam was
directed from earth to a mirror on the Space
Shuttle Discovery

The laser beam was supposed to be reflected

back towards a mountain top 10,023 feet high
The operator entered the elevation as “10023”

The light beam never hit the mountain top

What was the problem?

The computer interpreted the number in miles...

 Example of an Unintended Feature
From the News: London underground train
leaves station without driver!
What happened?
• A passenger door was stuck and did not close
• The driver left his train to close the passenger
door
• He left the driver door open
• He relied on the specification that said the train
does not move if at least one door is open
• When he shut the passenger door,
the train left the station without him. Why?
• The driver door was not treated
as a door in the source code!
 Requirements Process
:problem
statement

Requirements Requirements
elicitation Specification

:nonfunctional
requirements

:functional
model

Analysis Analysis Model

:dynamic model

UML Activity Diagram :analysis object

model
 Requirements Specification vs Analysis
Model
Both are models focusing on the requirements from the user’s
view of the system
 The requirements specification uses natural language (derived
from the problem statement)
 The analysis model uses a formal or semi-formal notation
 Requirements Modeling Languages
 Natural Language
 Graphical Languages: UML, SysML, SA/SD
 Mathematical Specification Languages: VDM (Vienna Definition
Method), Z (based on Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory), Formal
methods ….
Types of Requirements
 Functional requirements
 Describe the interactions between the system and its
environment independent from the implementation
“An operator must be able to define a new game“
 Nonfunctional requirements
 Aspects not directly related to functional behavior
“The response time must be less than 1 second”
 Constraints
 Imposed by the client or the environment
“The implementation language must be Java “
 Also called “Pseudo requirements”.
 Functional vs. Nonfunctional
Requirements
Functional Requirements Nonfunctional Requirements
 Describe user tasks which the  Describe properties of the system or
system needs to support the domain
 Phrased as actions
“Advertise a new league”  Phrased as constraints or negative
“Schedule tournament” assertions
“Notify an interest group” “All user inputs should be acknowledged
within 1 second”
“A system crash should not result in data
loss”.
 Types of Nonfunctional Requirements

Constraints or
Quality requirements Pseudo requirements
 Types of Nonfunctional Requirements
 Usability
 Reliability
 Robustness
 Safety
 Performance
 Response time
 Scalability
 Throughput
 Availability
 Supportability
 Adaptability
 Maintainability
Constraints or
Quality requirements Pseudo requirements
 Types of Nonfunctional Requirements
 Usability  Implementation
 Reliability  Interface
 Robustness  Operation
 Safety
 Packaging
 Performance
 Legal
 Response time
 Licensing (GPL, LGPL)
 Scalability
 Certification
 Throughput
 Regulation
 Availability
 Supportability
 Adaptability
 Maintainability Constraints or
Quality requirements Pseudo requirements
 Types of Nonfunctional Requirements
 Usability  Implementation
 Reliability  Interface
 Robustness  Operation
 Safety
 Packaging
 Performance
 Legal
 Response time
 Licensing (GPL, LGPL)
 Scalability
 Certification
 Throughput
 Regulation
 Availability
 Supportability
 Adaptability
 Maintainability Constraints or
Quality requirements Pseudo requirements
 Some Quality Requirements Definitions
 Usability
 The ease with which actors can perform a function in a system
 Usability is one of the most frequently misused terms (“The
system is easy to use”)
 Usability must be measurable, otherwise it is marketing
 Example: Specification of the number of steps – the measure! - to
perform a internet-based purchase with a web browser
 Robustness: The ability of a system to maintain a function
 even if the user enters a wrong input
 even if there are changes in the environment
 Example: The system can tolerate temperatures up to 90 C
 Availability: The ratio of the expected uptime of a system to
the aggregate of the expected up and down time
 Example: The system is down not more than 5 minutes per
week.
Nonfunctional Requirements:
Examples
 “Spectators must be able to watch a match without prior
registration and without prior knowledge of the match.”
 Usability Requirement
 “The system must support 10 parallel tournaments”
 Performance Requirement
 “The operator must be able to add new games without
modifications to the existing system.”
 Supportability Requirement
What should not be in the
Requirements?
 System structure, implementation technology
 Development methodology
 A rational design process: How and why to fake it (Parnas,
1986)
 Development environment
 Implementation language
 Reusability

 It is desirable that none of these above are constrained by the

client.
 Requirements Validation
Requirements validation is a quality assurance step, usually
performed after requirements elicitation or after analysis
 Correctness:
 The requirements represent the client’s view
 Completeness:
 All possible scenarios, in which the system can be used, are
described
 Consistency:
 There are no requirements that contradict each other.
 Requirements Validation (2)
 Clarity:
 Requirements can only be interpreted in one way
 Realism:
 Requirements can be implemented and delivered
 Traceability:
 Each system component and behavior can be traced to a set of
functional requirements

 Problems with requirements validation:

 Requirements change quickly during requirements elicitation
 Inconsistencies are easily added with each change
 Tool support is needed!
Tools for Requirements Management (2)
DOORS (Telelogic)
 Multi-platform requirements management tool, for teams
working in the same geographical location. DOORS XT for
distributed teams
RequisitePro (IBM/Rational)
 Integration with MS Word
 Project-to-project comparisons via XML baselines
RD-Link (http://www.ring-zero.com)
 Provides traceability between RequisitePro & Telelogic DOORS
Unicase (http://unicase.org)
 Research tool for the collaborative development of system models
 Participants can be geographically distributed.
 We can specify the Requirements for a
“Requirements Management” System
 Functional requirements:
 Store the requirements in a shared repository
 Provide multi-user access to the requirements
 Automatically create a specification document from the
requirements
 Allow change management of the requirements
 Provide traceability of the requirements throughout the
artifacts of the system.
Different Types of Requirements
Elicitation
 Greenfield Engineering
 Development starts from scratch, no prior system exists,
requirements come from end users and clients
 Triggered by user needs
 Re-engineering
 Re-design and/or re-implementation of an existing system
using newer technology
 Triggered by technology enabler
 Interface Engineering
 Provision of existing services in a new environment
 Triggered by technology enabler or new market needs
Prioritizing Requirements
 High priority
 Addressed during analysis, design, and implementation
 A high-priority feature must be demonstrated
 Medium priority
 Addressed during analysis and design
 Usually demonstrated in the second iteration
 Low priority
 Addressed only during analysis
 Illustrates how the system is going to be used in the future with
not yet available technology.
Requirements Analysis Document Template
1. Introduction
2. Current system
3. Proposed system
3.1 Overview
3.2 Functional requirements
3.3 Nonfunctional requirements
3.4 Constraints (“Pseudo requirements”)
3.5 System models
3.5.1 Scenarios
3.5.2 Use case model
3.5.3 Object model
3.5.3.1 Data dictionary
3.5.3.2 Class diagrams
3.5.4 Dynamic models
3.5.5 User interface
4. Glossary

Bruegge & Dutoit, 3rd edition, pp. 152

Section 3.3 Nonfunctional
Requirements
3.3.1 User interface and human factors
3.3.2 Documentation
3.3.3 Hardware considerations
3.3.4 Performance characteristics
3.3.5 Error handling and extreme conditions
3.3.6 System interfacing
3.3.7 Quality issues
3.3.8 System modifications
3.3.9 Physical environment
3.3.10 Security issues
3.3.11 Resources and management issues
 Nonfunctional Requirements
(Questions to overcome “Writers block”)
User interface and human factors
 What type of user will be using the system?
 Will more than one type of user be using the system?
 What training will be required for each type of user?
 Is it important that the system is easy to learn?
 Should users be protected from making errors?
 What input/output devices are available
Documentation
 What kind of documentation is required?
 What audience is to be addressed by each document?
 Nonfunctional Requirements (2)
Hardware considerations
 What hardware is the proposed system to be used on?
 What are the characteristics of the target hardware, including
memory size and auxiliary storage space?
Performance characteristics
 Are there speed, throughput, response time constraints on the
system?
 Are there size or capacity constraints on the data to be processed by
the system?
Error handling and extreme conditions
 How should the system respond to input errors?
 How should the system respond to extreme conditions?
 Nonfunctional Requirements (3)
System interfacing
 Is input coming from systems outside the proposed system?
 Is output going to systems outside the proposed system?
 Are there restrictions on the format or medium that must be used
for input or output?
Quality issues
 What are the requirements for reliability?
 Must the system trap faults?
 What is the time for restarting the system after a failure?
 Is there an acceptable downtime per 24-hour period?
 Is it important that the system be portable?
Nonfunctional Requirements (4)
System Modifications
 What parts of the system are likely to be modified?
 What sorts of modifications are expected?
Physical Environment
 Where will the target equipment operate?
 Is the target equipment in one or several locations?
 Will the environmental conditions be ordinary?
Security Issues
 Must access to data or the system be controlled?
 Is physical security an issue?
Nonfunctional Requirements (5)
Resources and Management Issues
 How often will the system be backed up?
 Who will be responsible for the back up?
 Who is responsible for system installation?
 Who will be responsible for system maintenance?
 Heathrow Luggage System
 On April 5, 2008 a system update was performed to upgrade the
baggage handling:
 50 flights were canceled on the day of the update
 A “Bag Backlog” of 20,000 bags was produced (Naomi Campbell
had a fit and was arrested)
 The bags were resorted in Italy and eventually sent to the passengers
via Federal Express
 What happened? Explanation:
 Computer failure in the high storage bay area in combination with
shortage of personal
Heathrow Luggage System Requirements
 Automate the processing of No-Show passengers
 Use a high bay storage area (“high rack warehouse”)
 Provide a chaotic storage capability
 Combine two existing luggage systems (“legacy systems”): Early (hours
before) and last minute checkins
 The system must be tested with 2500 volunteers
 The throughput must be at least 12000 suitcases/hour
 Use available information on the internet:
 http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=610
 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&refer=conews&tkr=FDX:US&sid=aY4IqhBRcyt
A



 Additional Readings
 Scenario-Based Design
 John M. Carrol, Scenario-Based Design: Envisioning Work and Technology in System Development, John
Wiley, 1995
 Usability Engineering: Scenario-Based Development of Human Computer Interaction, Morgan Kaufman,
2001
 David Parnas
 A rational design process: How and why to fake it, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, Volume 12
, Issue 2 (February 1986)
 Heathrow Luggage System:
 http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=610
 http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=conewsstory&refer=conews&tkr=FDX:US&sid=aY4IqhBRcytA

Additional Information about Heathrow (In German)

Panne auf Flughöhe Null (Spiegel):
http://www.spiegel.de/reise/aktuell/0,1518,544768,00.html
Zurück in das rotierende Chaos (FAZ):
http://www.faz.net/s/Rub7F4BEE0E0C39429A8565089709B70C44/Doc~EC1120B27386C4E34A67A5EE8E5523433~ATpl~Ecommon~Scontent.html

 OMG Systems Modeling Language (SysML 1.1):

 http://www.omg.org/spec/SysML/1.1/PDF/, November 2008
A Visionary Scenario from 1954:
The Home Computer in 2004
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/bl_rand_home_computer.htm
Maneuvering room of a U.S. nuclear
submarine (Smithsonian Museum)