1

CHAPTER 4:
REQUIREMENTS
ENGINEERING
2
TOPICS COVERED
Functional and non-functional requirements
Requirements engineering processes
Requirements elicitation
Requirements specification
Requirements validation
Requirements change / Management
3
4
REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING
The process of establishing the services that a
customer requires from a system and the
constraints under which it operates and is
developed.
The system requirements are the descriptions of
the system services and constraints that are
generated during the requirements engineering
process.
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 inevitable 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.
 6 REQUIREMENTS ABSTRACTION
(DAVIS)
“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.”
 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.
8
USER AND SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
9
READERS OF DIFFERENT TYPES OF
REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION
10

FUNCTIONAL AND NON-FUNCTIONAL

REQUIREMENTS
FUNCTIONAL AND NON-FUNCTIONAL
11
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
12
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.
13 MENTCARE SYSTEM:
FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS
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.
14
REQUIREMENTS IMPRECISION
Problems arise when functional 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.
15
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, because of system and

environmental complexity, it is impossible to
produce a complete and consistent
requirements document.
16 NON-FUNCTIONAL
REQUIREMENTS
These define system properties and constraints
e.g. reliability, response time and storage
requirements. Constraints are I/O device
capability, system representations, etc.
Process requirements may also be specified
mandating 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.
17 TYPES OF NONFUNCTIONAL
REQUIREMENT
18
NON-FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS
IMPLEMENTATION
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.
19 NON-FUNCTIONAL
CLASSIFICATIONS
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.
20 EXAMPLES OF NONFUNCTIONAL
REQUIREMENTS IN THE MENTCARE
SYSTEM
Product requirement
The Mentcare system 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 Mentcare 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.
21
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.
22
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)
METRICS FOR SPECIFYING
23
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
24

Software Requirement Document

(OR)
Software Requirement specification (SRS)
25

REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION
26 REQUIREMENTS
SPECIFICATION
The process of writing down 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.
WAYS OF WRITING A SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
SPECIFICATION
27
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 description This approach uses a language like a programming language, but with more
languages abstract features to specify the requirements by defining an operational
model of the system. This approach is now rarely used although it can be
useful for interface specifications.

Graphical notations Graphical models, supplemented by text annotations, are used to define 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
28
REQUIREMENTS AND DESIGN
In principle, requirements should state what the
system should do and the 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.
29 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.
GUIDELINES FOR WRITING
30
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 jargon.
Include an explanation (rationale) of why a
requirement is necessary.
31 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 amalgamation
◦ Several different requirements may be expressed together.
32
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.)
33
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.
34
FORM-BASED SPECIFICATIONS
Definition of the function or entity.
Description of inputs and where they come from.
Description of outputs and where they go to.
Information about the information needed for the
computation and other entities used.
Description of the action to be taken.
Pre and post conditions (if appropriate).
The side effects (if any) of the function.
35
A STRUCTURED SPECIFICATION OF A
REQUIREMENT FOR AN INSULIN PUMP
36
A STRUCTURED SPECIFICATION OF A
REQUIREMENT FOR AN INSULIN PUMP
37
TABULAR SPECIFICATION
Used to supplement natural language.
Particularly useful when you have to define a
number of possible alternative courses 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.
38
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 CompDose = 0

increase decreasing
((r2 – r1) < (r1 – r0))
Sugar level increasing and rate of CompDose =
increase stable or increasing round ((r2 – r1)/4)
((r2 – r1) ≥ (r1 – r0)) If rounded result = 0 then
CompDose =
MinimumDose
39
USE CASES
Use-cases are a kind of scenario that are included in
the UML.
Use cases 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.
High-level graphical model supplemented by more
detailed tabular description (see Chapter 5).
UML sequence diagrams may be used to add detail to
use-cases by showing the sequence of event
processing in the system.
40 USE CASES FOR THE
MENTCARE SYSTEM
41 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.
42
SRS – USERS OF REQUIREMENT DOC
- official statement of what
the system developers should
implement. It should include
both the user requirements
for a system and a detailed
specification of the system
requirements.
The requirements document
has a diverse set of users,
ranging from the senior
management of the
organization that is paying for
the system to the engineers
responsible for developing the
software
43 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.
STRUCTURE OF REQUIREMENT DOC
44
45

REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING
PROCESSES
46 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
1. Requirements elicitation;
2. Requirements analysis;
3. Requirements validation;
4. Requirements management.

In practice, RE is an iterative activity in which these

processes are interleaved.
47
A SPIRAL VIEW OF THE REQUIREMENTS
ENGINEERING PROCESS
48

1. REQUIREMENTS ELICITATION
49 2.REQUIREMENTS ELICITATION
AND ANALYSIS
Sometimes called requirements elicitation or
requirements discovery.
Involves technical staff working with customers
to find out about the application domain, the
services that the system should provide and
the system’s operational constraints.
May involve end-users, managers, engineers
involved in maintenance, domain experts,
trade unions, etc. These are called
stakeholders.
50
REQUIREMENTS ELICITATION
Software engineers work with a range of system
stakeholders to find out about the application
domain, the services that the system should
provide, the required system performance,
hardware constraints, other systems, etc.
Stages include:
◦ Requirements discovery,
◦ Requirements classification and organization,
◦ Requirements prioritization and negotiation,
◦ Requirements specification.
PROBLEMS OF REQUIREMENTS
51
ELICITATION

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.
52
THE REQUIREMENTS ELICITATION
AND ANALYSIS PROCESS
1) Requirements discovery: This is the
process of interacting with
stakeholders of the system to discover
their requirements.
2) This activity takes the unstructured
collection of requirements, groups
related requirements, and organizes
them into coherent clusters.
3) when multiple stake holders are
involved, requirements will conflict.
This activity is concerned with
prioritizing requirements and finding
and resolving requirements conflicts
through negotiation.
4) The requirements are documented and
input into the next round of the spiral.
Formal or informal requirements
documents may be produced
53
PROCESS ACTIVITIES
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.
54
REQUIREMENTS DISCOVERY
The process of gathering information about the
required and existing systems and distilling the
user and system requirements from this
information.
Interaction is with system stakeholders from
managers to external regulators.
Systems normally have a range of stakeholders.
55
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.

Effective interviewing
◦ Be open-minded, avoid pre-conceived ideas about the
requirements and are willing to 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.
56
INTERVIEWS IN PRACTICE
Normally a mix of closed and open-ended
interviewing.
Interviews are good for getting an overall
understanding of what stakeholders do and
how they might interact with the system.
Interviewers need to be open-minded without pre-
conceived ideas of what the system should do
You need to prompt the use to talk about the
system by suggesting requirements rather
than simply asking them what they want.
57
PROBLEMS WITH INTERVIEWS
Application specialists may use language to
describe their work that isn’t easy for the
requirements engineer to understand.
Interviews are not good for understanding domain
requirements
◦ Requirements engineers cannot understand specific domain
terminology;
◦ Some domain knowledge is so familiar that people find it
hard to articulate or think that it isn’t worth articulating.
58
ETHNOGRAPHY
A social scientist spends a considerable time
observing and analysing how people actually
work.
People do not have to explain or articulate
their work.
Social and organisational factors of
importance may be observed.
Ethnographic studies have shown that work
is usually richer and more complex than
suggested by simple system models.
59
SCOPE OF ETHNOGRAPHY
Requirements that are derived from the way that
people actually work rather than the way in which
process definitions suggest that they ought to
work.
Requirements that are derived from cooperation
and awareness of other people’s activities.
◦ Awareness of what other people are doing leads to changes
in the ways in which we do things.

Ethnography is effective for understanding

existing processes but cannot identify new
features that should be added to a system.
60
FOCUSED ETHNOGRAPHY
Developed in a project studying the air traffic
control process
Combines ethnography with prototyping
Prototype development results in unanswered
questions which focus the ethnographic analysis.
The problem with ethnography is that it studies
existing practices which may have some
historical basis which is no longer relevant.
61
ETHNOGRAPHY AND PROTOTYPING
FOR REQUIREMENTS ANALYSIS
62
STORIES AND SCENARIOS
Scenarios and user stories are real-life examples
of how a system can be used.
Stories and scenarios are a description of how a
system may be used for a particular task.
Because they are based on a practical situation,
stakeholders can relate to them and can comment
on their situation with respect to the story.
63 PHOTO SHARING IN THE
CLASSROOM (ILEARN)
Jack is a primary school teacher in Ullapool (a village in northern Scotland). He
has decided that a class project should be focused around the fishing industry
in the area, looking at the history, development and economic impact of
fishing. As part of this, pupils are asked to gather and share reminiscences from
relatives, use newspaper archives and collect old photographs related to fishing
and fishing communities in the area. Pupils use an iLearn wiki to gather
together fishing stories and SCRAN (a history resources site) to access
newspaper archives and photographs. However, Jack also needs a photo
sharing site as he wants pupils to take and comment on each others’ photos
and to upload scans of old photographs that they may have in their families.

Jack sends an email to a primary school teachers group, which he is a member

of to see if anyone can recommend an appropriate system. Two teachers reply
and both suggest that he uses KidsTakePics, a photo sharing site that allows
teachers to check and moderate content. As KidsTakePics is not integrated with
the iLearn authentication service, he sets up a teacher and a class account. He
uses the iLearn setup service to add KidsTakePics to the services seen by the
pupils in his class so that when they log in, they can immediately use the
system to upload photos from their mobile devices and class computers.
64
SCENARIOS
A structured form of user story
Scenarios 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.
65
UPLOADING PHOTOS ILEARN)
Initial assumption: A user or a group of users have one or more
digital photographs to be uploaded to the picture sharing site.
These are saved on either a tablet or laptop computer. They have
successfully logged on to KidsTakePics.
Normal: The user chooses upload photos and they are prompted
to select the photos to be uploaded on their computer and to select
the project name under which the photos will be stored. They
should also be given the option of inputting keywords that should
be associated with each uploaded photo. Uploaded photos are
named by creating a conjunction of the user name with the
filename of the photo on the local computer.
On completion of the upload, the system automatically sends an
email to the project moderator asking them to check new content
and generates an on-screen message to the user that this has been
done.
66
UPLOADING PHOTOS
What can go wrong:
No moderator is associated with the selected project. An email is
automatically generated to the school administrator asking them to
nominate a project moderator. Users should be informed that there could be
a delay in making their photos visible.
Photos with the same name have already been uploaded by the same user.
The user should be asked if they wish to re-upload the photos with the same
name, rename the photos or cancel the upload. If they chose to re-upload
the photos, the originals are overwritten. If they chose to rename the
photos, a new name is automatically generated by adding a number to the
existing file name.
Other activities: The moderator may be logged on to the system and
may approve photos as they are uploaded.
System state on completion: User is logged on. The selected photos
have been uploaded and assigned a status ‘awaiting moderation’. Photos
are visible to the moderator and to the user who uploaded them.
67

3.REQUIREMENTS VALIDATION
68
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.
69
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?
REQUIREMENTS VALIDATION
70
TECHNIQUES

Requirements reviews
◦ Systematic manual analysis of the requirements.

Prototyping
◦ Using an executable model of the system to check
requirements. Covered in Chapter 2.

Test-case generation
◦ Developing tests for requirements to check testability.
71
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.
72
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?
73

4.REQUIREMENTS CHANGE &

MANAGEMENT
74
CHANGING REQUIREMENTS
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), and new legislation and regulations may be
introduced that the system must necessarily abide by.

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.
75
CHANGING REQUIREMENTS
Large systems usually have a diverse user
community, with many users having different
requirements and priorities that may be
conflicting or contradictory.
◦ The final system requirements are inevitably a compromise
between them and, with experience, it is often discovered
that the balance of support given to different users has to
be changed.
76
REQUIREMENTS EVOLUTION
77
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.
 78 REQUIREMENTS MANAGEMENT
PLANNING
Establishes the level of requirements management detail that is
required.
Requirements management decisions:
◦ Requirements identification Each requirement must be uniquely identified so that
it can be cross-referenced with other requirements.
◦ A change management process This is the set of activities that assess the impact
and cost of changes. I discuss this process in more detail in the following section.
◦ Traceability policies These policies define the relationships between each
requirement and between the requirements and the system design that should
be recorded.
◦ Tool support Tools that may be used range from specialist requirements
management systems to spreadsheets and simple database systems.
79 REQUIREMENTS CHANGE
MANAGEMENT
Deciding if a requirements change should be accepted
◦ Problem analysis and change specification
◦ During this stage, 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.
◦ 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.
◦ 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.
80 REQUIREMENTS CHANGE
MANAGEMENT
81
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.
82
KEY POINTS
The requirements engineering process is an iterative
process that includes requirements elicitation, specification
and validation.
Requirements elicitation is an iterative process that can be
represented as a spiral of activities – requirements
discovery, requirements classification and organization,
requirements negotiation and requirements documentation.
You can use a range of techniques for requirements
elicitation including interviews and ethnography. User
stories and scenarios may be used to facilitate discussions.
83
KEY POINTS
Requirements specification is the process of
formally documenting the user and system
requirements and creating a software
requirements document.
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.
84
KEY POINTS
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.