Premium
A Simple Prescription For Requirements Success
Author(s) -
Grady Jeffrey O.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.2011.tb01300.x
Subject(s) - computer science , paragraph , traceability , software engineering , requirements traceability , simple (philosophy) , software requirements specification , requirements analysis , systems engineering , software design , software , software development , requirement , programming language , engineering , world wide web , philosophy , epistemology
In the development of systems and entities thereof it is extremely important as a prerequisite to design to know clearly what is needed, what are the essential characteristics that the design must have. We system engineers call these requirements and we prepare specifications for each entity in a system and for the whole system containing in each case all of the essential characteristics the design must possess. There are few enterprises and programs within them that are applying an effective requirements analysis approach but it is not all that difficult to do so. There are a few simple activities that can be combined to form a prescription for success. We should possess a preferred template for each kind of specification we will have to develop. We should model the program problem space and derive the requirements from model artifacts. Each paragraph of a specification should be linked to a model and a discipline provided by a particular engineering department of the developing enterprise such that on a program people from that department will apply that model to derive requirements that fall into that paragraph of program specifications. The model applied on all programs should be the same and it should be a comprehensive model meaning it is effective no matter how the design will be implemented in hardware, software, or people doing things. The modeling artifacts should be captured, reported, and configuration control applied to them. Finally, a program should establish and maintain traceability between the modeling artifacts and specification content using a requirements analysis sheet. This paper covers three comprehensive models, one of which an enterprise should select and apply on all programs. The paper also shows a preferred specification template and how to arrange traceability between the specification paragraphing structure, the modeling artifacts, and engineering department structure. In order to take advantage of this simple prescription an enterprise does have to apply effective management to initiate and continue movement from the present to a condition of success.