CH 04
CH 04
Lecture 1
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.
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
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.
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
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
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.
Lecture 2
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
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
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
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.)
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
Condition Action
Stages include:
▪ Requirements discovery
▪ Requirements classification and organization
▪ Requirements prioritization and negotiation
▪ Requirements specification
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
Lecture 3
Stages include:
▪ Requirements discovery
▪ Requirements classification and organization
▪ Requirements prioritization and negotiation
▪ Requirements specification
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.
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.
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?