MODULE 2

MODELING AND DESIGN

CHAPTER 5 UNDERSTANDING REQUIREMENTS

REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING
Broad spectrum of tasks and techniques that lead to an understanding of requirements Is a major s/w engineering action Begins with communication activity and continues into modeling activity Must be adapted to the needs of the process, the project, the product and the people doing the work

REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING
Builds a bridge to design and construction Origin of the bridge-project stakeholders/s/w is one component of a larger system domain

REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING
Provides the appropriate mechanism for
understanding what the customer wants Analyzing need Assessing feasibility Negotiating a reasonable solution Specifying the solution unambiguously Validating the specification Managing the requirements as they are transformed into operational system

 Encompasses 7 distinct tasks that occur in parallel and all are adapted to the needs of the project
Inception Elicitation Elaboration Negotiation Specification Validation Management Explain

REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING

 Inception- establish a basic understanding

of the problem The people who want a solution The nature of the solution that is desired The Effectiveness of preliminary communication and collaboration between other stakeholders and the s/w team

 Elicitation Ask the customer, the users and others What the objectives for the system or product are What is to be accomplished How the system or product fits into the needs of the business How the system or product is to be used on a day-to-day basis

Establishing the Ground work

Steps to establish groundwork for an understanding of s/w requirements 1. Identifying stakeholders 2.Recognising Multiple viewpoints 3. Working toward collaboration 4. Asking the first questions

 Stakeholder :

1.Identifying stakeholders
Anyone who benefits in a direct or indirect way from the system which is being developed Each ahs a different view of the system Achieves different benefits when the system is successfully developed Open to different risks if development effort should fail

Business operations managers, product managers, marketing people, internal and external customers, end users, consultants, product engineers, s/w engineers, support and maintenance engineers

2.Recognising Multiple viewpoints

Many different stakeholders, requirements explored from many different points of view Emerging requirements may be inconsistent or may conflict with one another Categorize all stakeholder information in order to choose an internally consistent set of requirements for the system Example Each stakeholder will contribute information to the requirements engineering process

3. Working toward collaboration

Stakeholders must collaborate among themselves Requirements engineer identify
areas of commonality (ie requirements on which all stakeholders agree) areas of conflict or inconsistency (ie. requirements desired by one stakeholder but conflict with the needs of another stakeholder)

 Context free questions Focuses on Example questions:

4. Asking the first questions

the customer and other stakeholders Overall project goals and benefits Who is behind the request for this work?, Who will use the solution?, What will be the economic benefit of a successful solution? Is there another source for the solution that you need? Help to identify
the stakeholders who have interest in the s/w to be built The measurable benefit of a successful implementation and possible alternatives to custom s/w development

 Next set of questions

4. Asking the first questions

Enables to gain better understanding of the problem Allows the customer to voice his/her perceptions about a solution How would you characterize good output that would be generated by a successful solution?, What problems will this solution address? , can you show the business environment in which the solution will be used?, Will special performance issues or constraints affect the way the solution is approached?

4. Asking the first questions

Final set of questions (meta questions) Focus on effectiveness of the communication activity itself

Eliciting Requirements
Also called requirements gathering Combines elements of problem solving, elaboration, negotiation and specification Collaborative team oriented approach to requirements gathering Stakeholders work together to identify the problem, propose elements of the solution, negotiate different approaches and specify a set of preliminary set of solution requirements

Eliciting Requirements
Collaborative requirements gathering Quality function deployment Usage scenarios

Collaborative requirements gathering