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CH 04

The document discusses requirements engineering including functional and non-functional requirements, the requirements specification process, and elicitation and analysis. It provides examples of different types of requirements for a medical healthcare appointment scheduling system.

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
34 views76 pages

CH 04

The document discusses requirements engineering including functional and non-functional requirements, the requirements specification process, and elicitation and analysis. It provides examples of different types of requirements for a medical healthcare appointment scheduling system.

Uploaded by

nexoro9144
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 76

Chapter 4 – Requirements Engineering

Lecture 1

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 1


Topics covered

 Functional and non-functional requirements


 The software requirements document
 Requirements specification
 Requirements engineering processes
 Requirements elicitation and analysis
 Requirements validation
 Requirements management

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 2


Introduction

 Video: From client to Code

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 3


Course Project

 Introducing the Course Project Report

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 4


Requirements engineering

 The process of establishing the services that the


customer requires from a system and the constraints
under which it operates and is developed.
 The requirements themselves are the descriptions of
the system services and constraints that are
generated during the requirements engineering process.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 5


What is a requirement?

 It may range from a high-level abstract statement of a


service or of a system constraint to a detailed
mathematical functional specification.
 This is unavoidable as requirements may serve a dual
function
▪ May be the basis for a bid for a contract - therefore must be
open to interpretation;
▪ May be the basis for the contract itself - therefore must be
defined in detail;
▪ Both these statements may be called requirements.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 6


Requirements abstraction

“If a company wishes to let a contract for a large software


development project, it must define its needs in a
sufficiently abstract way that a solution is not pre-
defined. The requirements must be written so that several
contractors can bid for the contract, offering, perhaps,
different ways of meeting the client organization’s
needs. Once a contract has been awarded, the contractor
must write a system definition for the client in more detail so
that the client understands and can validate what the
software will do. Both of these documents may be called the
requirements document for the system.”

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 7


Types of requirement

 User requirements
▪ Statements in natural language plus diagrams of the
services the system provides and its operational
constraints. Written for customers.
 System requirements
▪ A structured document setting out detailed
descriptions of the system’s functions, services and
operational constraints. Defines what should be
implemented so may be part of a contract between
client and contractor.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 8


User and system requirements

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 9


Readers of different types of requirements
specification

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 10


Functional and non-functional requirements

 Functional requirements
▪ Statements of services the system should provide, how the
system should react to particular inputs and how the system
should behave in particular situations.
▪ May state what the system should not do.
 Non-functional requirements
▪ Constraints on the services or functions offered by the
system such as timing constraints, constraints on the
development process, standards, etc.
▪ Often apply to the system as a whole rather than individual
features or services.
 Domain requirements
▪ Constraints on the system from the domain of operation

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 11


Functional requirements

 Describe functionality or system services.


 Depend on the type of software, expected users and
the type of system where the software is used.
 Functional user requirements may be high-level
statements of what the system should do.
 Functional system requirements should describe the
system services in detail.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 12


Functional requirements for the MHC-PMS

 A user shall be able to search the appointments lists for


all clinics.
 The system shall generate each day, for each clinic, a
list of patients who are expected to attend appointments
that day.
 Each staff member using the system shall be uniquely
identified by his or her 8-digit employee number.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 13


Requirements imprecision

 Problems arise when requirements are not precisely


stated.
 Ambiguous requirements may be interpreted in
different ways by developers and users.
 Consider the term ‘search’ in requirement 1
▪ User intention – search for a patient name across all
appointments in all clinics;
▪ Developer interpretation – search for a patient name in an
individual clinic. User chooses clinic then search.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 14


Requirements completeness and consistency

 In principle, requirements should be both complete


and consistent.
 Complete
▪ They should include descriptions of all facilities required.
 Consistent
▪ There should be no conflicts or contradictions in the
descriptions of the system facilities.
 In practice, it is impossible to produce a complete
and consistent requirements document.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 15


Non-functional requirements

 These define system properties and constraints


▪ properties like reliability, response time, storage
requirements, etc.
▪ constraints like I/O device capability, system
representations, etc.
 Process requirements may also be specified requiring a
particular IDE, programming language or
development method.
 Non-functional requirements may be more critical
than functional requirements. If these are not met, the
system may be useless.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 16


Non-functional requirements

 Non-functional requirements may affect the overall


architecture of a system rather than the individual
components.
▪ For example, to ensure that performance requirements are met,
you may have to organize the system to minimize
communications between components.
 A single non-functional requirement, such as a
security requirement, may generate a number of
related functional requirements that define system
services that are required.
▪ It may also generate requirements that restrict existing
requirements.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 17


Types of nonfunctional requirement

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 18


Types of nonfunctional requirement

 Product requirements
▪ Requirements which specify that the delivered product must
behave in a particular way e.g. execution speed, reliability, etc.
 Organisational requirements
▪ Requirements which are a consequence of organisational
policies and procedures e.g. process standards used,
implementation requirements, etc.
 External requirements
▪ Requirements which arise from factors which are external to
the system and its development process e.g. interoperability
requirements, legislative requirements, etc.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 19


Examples of nonfunctional requirements in the
MHC-PMS

Product requirement
The MHC-PMS shall be available to all clinics during
normal working hours (Mon–Fri, 0830–17.30).
Downtime within normal working hours shall not
exceed five seconds in any one day.

Organizational requirement
Users of the MHC-PMS system shall authenticate
themselves using their health authority identity card.

External requirement
The system shall implement patient privacy
provisions as set out in HStan-03-2006-priv.
Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 20
Goals and requirements

 Non-functional requirements may be very difficult to


state precisely and imprecise requirements may be
difficult to verify.
 Goal
▪ A general intention of the user such as ease of use.
 Verifiable non-functional requirement
▪ A statement using some measure that can be objectively
tested.
 Goals are helpful to developers as they convey the
intentions of the system users.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 21


Usability requirements

 The system should be easy to use by medical staff and


should be organized in such a way that user errors are
minimized. (Goal)
 Medical staff shall be able to use all the system functions
after four hours of training. After this training, the
average number of errors made by experienced users
shall not exceed two per hour of system use. (Testable
non-functional requirement)

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 22


Metrics for specifying nonfunctional
requirements

Property Measure
Speed Processed transactions/second
User/event response time
Screen refresh time
Size Mbytes
Number of ROM chips
Ease of use Training time
Number of help frames
Reliability Mean time to failure
Probability of unavailability
Rate of failure occurrence
Availability
Robustness Time to restart after failure
Percentage of events causing failure
Probability of data corruption on failure
Portability Percentage of target dependent statements
Number of target systems
Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 23
Domain requirements

 The system’s operational domain imposes requirements


on the system.
▪ For example, a train control system has to take into account
the braking characteristics in different weather conditions.
 Domain requirements can be new functional
requirements, constraints on existing requirements
or define specific computations.
 If domain requirements are not satisfied, the system
may be unworkable.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 24


Domain requirements problems

 Understandability
▪ Requirements are expressed in the language of the
application domain;
▪ This is often not understood by software engineers
developing the system.
 Implicitness
▪ Domain specialists understand the area so well that
they do not think of making the domain
requirements explicit.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 25


Key points

 Requirements for a software system set out what the


system should do and define constraints on its operation
and implementation.
 Functional requirements are statements of the services
that the system must provide or are descriptions of how
some computations must be carried out.
 Non-functional requirements often constrain the system
being developed and the development process being
used.
 They often relate to the emergent properties of the
system and therefore apply to the system as a whole.
Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 26
Chapter 4 – Requirements Engineering

Lecture 2

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 27


The software requirements document

 The software requirements document is the official


statement of what is required of the system
developers.
 Should include both a definition of user requirements
and a specification of the system requirements.
 It is NOT a design document. As far as possible, it
should set of WHAT the system should do rather than
HOW it should do it.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 28


Agile methods and requirements

 Many agile methods argue that producing a


requirements document is a waste of time as
requirements change so quickly.
 The document is therefore always out of date.
 Methods such as XP use incremental requirements
engineering and express requirements as ‘user
stories’ (discussed in Chapter 3).
 This is practical for business systems but problematic
for systems that require a lot of pre-delivery analysis (e.g.
critical systems) or systems developed by several teams.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 29


Users of a requirements document

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 30


Requirements document variability

 Information in requirements document depends on


type of system and the approach to development
used.
 Systems developed incrementally will, typically, have
less detail in the requirements document.
 Requirements documents standards have been
designed e.g. IEEE standard. These are mostly
applicable to the requirements for large systems
engineering projects.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 31


The structure of a requirements document

Chapter Description
Preface This should define the expected readership of the document and describe
its version history, including a rationale for the creation of a new version
and a summary of the changes made in each version.
Introduction This should describe the need for the system. It should briefly describe
the system’s functions and explain how it will work with other
systems. It should also describe how the system fits into the overall
business or strategic objectives of the organization commissioning the
software.
Glossary This should define the technical terms used in the document. You should
not make assumptions about the experience or expertise of the reader.
User requirements Here, you describe the services provided for the user. The
definition nonfunctional system requirements should also be described in this
section. This description may use natural language, diagrams, or other
notations that are understandable to customers. Product and process
standards that must be followed should be specified.
System architecture This chapter should present a high-level overview of the anticipated
system architecture, showing the distribution of functions across system
modules. Architectural components that are reused should be highlighted.
Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 32
The structure of a requirements document

Chapter Description
System This should describe the functional and nonfunctional requirements in more
requirements detail. If necessary, further detail may also be added to the nonfunctional
specification requirements. Interfaces to other systems may be defined.
System models This might include graphical system models showing the relationships
between the system components and the system and its environment.
Examples of possible models are object models, data-flow models, or semantic
data models.
System evolution This should describe the fundamental assumptions on which the system is
based, and any anticipated changes due to hardware evolution, changing
user needs, and so on. This section is useful for system designers as it may help
them avoid design decisions that would constrain likely future changes to the
system.
Appendices These should provide detailed, specific information that is related to the
application being developed; for example, hardware and database descriptions.
Hardware requirements define the minimal and optimal configurations for the
system. Database requirements define the logical organization of the data used
by the system and the relationships between data.
Index Several indexes to the document may be included. As well as a normal alphabetic
index, there may be an index of diagrams, an index of functions, and so on.
Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 33
Requirements specification

 The process of writing the user and system


requirements in a requirements document.
 User requirements have to be understandable by
end-users and customers who do not have a technical
background.
 System requirements are more detailed
requirements and may include more technical
information.
 The requirements may be part of a contract for the
system development
▪ It is therefore important that these are as complete as possible.
Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 34
Ways of writing a system requirements
specification

Notation Description
Natural language The requirements are written using numbered sentences in natural language.
Each sentence should express one requirement.

Structured natural The requirements are written in natural language on a standard form or
language template. Each field provides information about an aspect of the
requirement.
Design This approach uses a language like a programming language, but with
description more abstract features to specify the requirements by defining an operational
languages model of the system. This approach is now rarely used although it can be
useful for interface specifications.
Graphical Graphical models, supplemented by text annotations, are used to define
notations the functional requirements for the system; UML use case and sequence
diagrams are commonly used.
Mathematical These notations are based on mathematical concepts such as finite-state
specifications machines or sets. Although these unambiguous specifications can reduce
the ambiguity in a requirements document, most customers don’t
understand a formal specification. They cannot check that it represents
what they want and are reluctant to accept it as a system contract

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 35


Requirements and design

 In principle:
▪ requirements should state what the system should do
▪ design should describe how it does this.
 In practice, requirements and design are inseparable
▪ A system architecture may be designed to structure the
requirements;
▪ The system may inter-operate with other systems that generate
design requirements;
▪ The use of a specific architecture to satisfy non-functional
requirements may be a domain requirement.
▪ This may be the consequence of a regulatory requirement.
Natural language specification

 Requirements are written as natural language


sentences supplemented by diagrams and tables.
 Used for writing requirements because it is expressive,
intuitive and universal.
 This means that the requirements can be understood
by users and customers.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 37


Guidelines for writing requirements

 Invent a standard format and use it for all requirements.


 Use language in a consistent way:
▪ Use shall for mandatory requirements, should for
desirable requirements.
 Use text highlighting to identify key parts of the
requirement.
 Avoid the use of computer terminology.
 Include an explanation (justification) of why a
requirement is necessary.
Problems with natural language

 Lack of clarity
▪ Precision is difficult without making the document
difficult to read.
 Requirements confusion
▪ Functional and non-functional requirements tend to
be mixed-up.
 Requirements mixture
▪ Several different requirements may be expressed
together.
Example requirements for the insulin pump
software system

3.2 The system shall measure the blood sugar and deliver
insulin, if required, every 10 minutes. (Changes in blood
sugar are relatively slow so more frequent measurement is
unnecessary; less frequent measurement could lead to
unnecessarily high sugar levels.)

3.6 The system shall run a self-test routine every minute


with the conditions to be tested and the associated actions
defined in Table 1. (A self-test routine can discover
hardware and software problems and alert the user to the
fact the normal operation may be impossible.)

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 40


Structured specifications

 An approach to writing requirements where the


freedom of the requirements writer is limited and
requirements are written in a standard way.
 This works well for some types of requirements e.g.
requirements for embedded control system but is
sometimes too rigid for writing business system
requirements.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 41


Form-based specifications

 It includes:
▪ Definition of the function or entity.
▪ Description of inputs and where they come from.
▪ Description of outputs and where they go to.
▪ Description of the action to be taken.
▪ Pre conditions (if appropriate).
▪ Post conditions (if appropriate).
▪ Side effects (if any) of the function.
Tabular specification

 Used to supplement natural language.


 Particularly useful when you have to define a number of
possible alternative paths of action.
 For example, the insulin pump systems bases its
computations on the rate of change of blood sugar level
and the tabular specification explains how to calculate
the insulin requirement for different scenarios.
Tabular specification of computation for an
insulin pump

Condition Action

Sugar level falling (r2 < r1) CompDose = 0


Sugar level stable (r2 = r1) CompDose = 0
Sugar level increasing and rate of increase CompDose = 0
decreasing
((r2 – r1) < (r1 – r0))
Sugar level increasing and rate of increase CompDose = round ((r2 –
stable or increasing r1)/4)
((r2 – r1) ≥ (r1 – r0)) If rounded result = 0 then
CompDose = MinimumDose

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 44


Requirements engineering processes

 The processes used for RE vary widely depending on


the application domain, the people involved and the
organisation developing the requirements.
 However, there are a number of generic activities
common to all processes:
▪ Requirements elicitation/discovery
▪ Requirements analysis
▪ Requirements validation
▪ Requirements management
 In practice, RE is an iterative activity in which these
processes are interleaved.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 45


A spiral view of the requirements engineering
process

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 46


Requirements elicitation and analysis

 Involves software engineers working with customers


to find out about the application domain, the services
that the system should provide, the system’s operational
constraints, the required system performance,
hardware constraints, other systems, etc.
 May involve end-users, managers, engineers involved in
maintenance, domain experts, etc. (called stakeholders).

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 47


Requirements elicitation and analysis

 Stages include:
▪ Requirements discovery
▪ Requirements classification and organization
▪ Requirements prioritization and negotiation
▪ Requirements specification

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 48


Requirements elicitation and analysis

 Requirements discovery
▪ Interacting with stakeholders to discover their requirements.
▪ Domain requirements are also discovered at this stage.
 Requirements classification and organisation
▪ Groups related requirements and organises them into
coherent clusters.
 Prioritisation and negotiation
▪ Prioritising requirements and resolving requirements
conflicts.
 Requirements specification
▪ Requirements are documented and input into the next
round of the spiral.
Requirements elicitation and analysis

 Problems:
▪ Stakeholders don’t know what they really want.
▪ Stakeholders express requirements in their own
terms.
▪ Different stakeholders may have conflicting
requirements.
▪ Organisational and political factors may influence
the system requirements.
▪ The requirements change during the analysis
process. New stakeholders may emerge and the
business environment may change.
Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 50
Key points

 The software requirements document is an agreed


statement of the system requirements. It should be
organized so that both system customers and software
developers can use it.
 The requirements engineering process is an iterative
process including requirements elicitation, specification
and validation.
 Requirements elicitation and analysis is an iterative
process that can be represented as a spiral of activities –
requirements discovery, requirements classification and
organization, requirements negotiation and requirements
documentation.
Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 51
Chapter 4 – Requirements Engineering

Lecture 3

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 52


Requirements elicitation and analysis

 Stages include:
▪ Requirements discovery
▪ Requirements classification and organization
▪ Requirements prioritization and negotiation
▪ Requirements specification

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 53


Requirements discovery

 The process of gathering information about the


required and existing systems and extracting the user
and system requirements from this information.
 It involves interaction with a range of system
stakeholders, including managers, external regulators,
etc.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 54


Stakeholders in the MHC-PMS

 Patients whose information is recorded in the system.


 Doctors who are responsible for assessing and treating
patients.
 Nurses who coordinate the consultations with doctors
and administer some treatments.
 Medical receptionists who manage patients’
appointments.
 IT staff who are responsible for installing and
maintaining the system.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 55


Stakeholders in the MHC-PMS

 A medical ethics manager who must ensure that the


system meets current ethical guidelines for patient care.
 Health care managers who obtain management
information from the system.
 Medical records staff who are responsible for ensuring
that system information can be maintained and
preserved, and that record keeping procedures have
been properly implemented.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 56


Interviewing

 Formal or informal interviews with stakeholders are


part of most RE processes.
 Types of interview
▪ Closed interviews based on pre-determined list of
questions
▪ Open interviews where various issues are explored
with stakeholders.
 In practice, a mix of closed and open interviewing is
used.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 57


Interviewing

 Effective interviewing
▪ Be open-minded, avoid your assumptions about the
requirements and listen to stakeholders.
▪ Prompt the interviewee to get discussions going
using a springboard question, a requirements
proposal, or by working together on a prototype
system.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 58


Scenarios

 Scenarios are real-life examples of how a system can


be used.
 They should include:
▪ A description of the starting situation
▪ A description of the normal flow of events
▪ A description of what can go wrong
▪ Information about other concurrent activities
▪ A description of the state when the scenario
finishes
Use cases

 Use-cases are a scenario based technique in the UML


which identify the actors in an interaction and which
describe the interaction itself.
 A set of use cases should describe all possible
interactions with the system.
 the graphical model is usually supplemented by more
detailed tabular description.
 Sequence diagrams may be used to add details to
use-cases by showing the sequence of event processing
in the system.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 60


Use cases for the MHC-PMS

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 61


Requirements validation

 Concerned with demonstrating that the requirements


define the system that the customer really wants.
 Requirements error costs are high so validation is
very important
▪ Fixing a requirements error after delivery may cost
up to 100 times the cost of fixing an implementation
error.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 62


Requirements checking

 Validity: does the system provide the functions which


best support the customer’s needs?
 Consistency: are there any requirements conflicts?
 Completeness: are all functions required by the
customer included?
 Realism: can the requirements be implemented given
available budget and technology
 Verifiability: can the requirements be checked?

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 63


Requirements validation techniques

 Requirements reviews
▪ Systematic manual analysis of the requirements.
 Prototyping
▪ Using an executable model of the system to check
requirements.
 Test-case generation
▪ Developing tests for requirements to check testability.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 64


Requirements reviews

 Regular reviews should be held while the


requirements definition is being formulated.
 Both client and contractor staff should be involved in
reviews.
 Reviews may be formal (with completed documents) or
informal.
 Good communications between developers, customers
and users can resolve problems at an early stage.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 65


Review checks

 Verifiability
▪ Is the requirement realistically testable?
 Comprehensibility
▪ Is the requirement properly understood?
 Traceability
▪ Is the origin of the requirement clearly stated?
 Adaptability
▪ Can the requirement be changed without a large
impact on other requirements?

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 66


Requirements management

 Requirements management is the process of managing


changing requirements during the requirements
engineering process and system development.
 New requirements emerge as a system is being
developed and after it has gone into use.
 You need to keep track of individual requirements and
maintain links between dependent requirements so that
you can assess the impact of requirements changes.
 You need to establish a formal process for making
change proposals and linking these to system
requirements.
Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 67
Requirements management

 Requirements are changing because the business


and technical environment of the system always
changes after installation.
▪ new hardware may be introduced
▪ it may be necessary to interface the system with other
systems
▪ business priorities may change (with consequent
changes in the system support required)
▪ new legislation and regulations may be introduced
that the system must necessarily abide by

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 68


Requirements management

 Requirements are changing because the people who


pay for a system and the users of that system are
rarely the same people
▪ System customers impose requirements because of
organizational and budgetary constraints.
▪ These may conflict with end-user requirements and,
after delivery, new features may have to be added for
user support if the system is to meet its goals.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 69


Requirements management

 Requirements are changing because large systems


usually have a diverse user community, with many
users having different requirements and priorities that
may be conflicting.
▪ The final system requirements are a compromise
between them and, it is often discovered that the
balance of support given to different users has to
be changed.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 70


Requirements management

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 71


Requirements management

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 72


Requirements management

 Stage 1: Problem analysis and change specification


▪ the problem or the change proposal is analyzed to
check that it is valid.
▪ This analysis is fed back to the change requestor who
may respond with a more specific requirements
change proposal, or decide to withdraw the request.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 73


Requirements management

 Stage 2: Change analysis and costing


▪ The effect of the proposed change is assessed using
traceability information and general knowledge of the
system requirements.
▪ Once this analysis is completed, a decision is made
whether or not to proceed with the requirements
change.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 74


Requirements management

 Stage 3: Change implementation


▪ The requirements document and, where necessary,
the system design and implementation, are modified.
▪ Ideally, the document should be organized so that
changes can be easily implemented.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 75


Key points

 You can use a range of techniques for requirements


elicitation including interviews, scenarios, use-cases and
ethnography.
 Requirements validation is the process of checking the
requirements for validity, consistency, completeness,
realism and verifiability.
 Business, organizational and technical changes
inevitably lead to changes to the requirements for a
software system. Requirements management is the
process of managing and controlling these changes.

Chapter 4 Requirements engineering 76

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