Eliciting Requirements

Almost everyone involved in software engineering or software project management during the last 20 years is well aware of the importance of requirements. We rarely hear of a success story declaring victory over the ever-elusive set of specs, but we often hear poor requirements

Tags life cycle, software product, software project management

A number of excellent guides to requirements elicitation have been published; therefore, our intention is not to rearticulate them, but to make the reader aware of them and the power of their use. Gerald Weinberg, Roger Pressman, and Barry Boehm have suggested steps to gather

Tags software system, software requirements, requirements engineering, requirements elicitation

Requirements management is a key process area (KPA) for SEI CMM Level 2, the repeatable level. The purpose is to "establish a common understanding between the customer and the software project of the customer's requirements that will be addressed by the software project."

Tags software product, life cycle, software engineering group, software project, csf

A software requirement is a capability that somebody needs or wants. It can be a component of an entire new application, a new feature for an existing application (an enhancement), or a request to correct a current shortcoming. IEEE describes a requirement as: (a) a condition or capability needed by a user to solve a problem or achieve an objective; (b) a condition or

Tags software requirement, product features, requirements elicitation

We will study interviewing, brainstorming, mind mapping, facilitated application specification technique (FAST), Joint Application Design (JAD), and use case scenarios as viable methods for eliciting software requirements. These are some suggested activities and thoughts that are

Tags software requirements, fast, jad, brainstorming, mind mapping

FAST is similar enough to brainstorming and to JAD that we will provide only cursory coverage here. This is not to belittle the process in any way - FAST is an important part of the software PM's vocabulary because it was developed to be a method particularly for gathering software

Tags fast, brainstorming, jad, software requirements, elicitation methods

Requirements, generally gathered via many different means, will become specifications when they are tightened up and formatted according to the SRS template, or "container". Clarity that can be imbued at this point will be appreciated later. There is not as much precision in the

Tags srs template, software requirements, prototypes

The most difficult single part of building a software system is deciding specifically what to build. No other part of the conceptual work is as difficult as establishing the detailed technical requirements, containing all the interfaces to people, to machines, and to other software

Tags software systems, eliciting requirements, software requirements, life cycle models

Quality function deployment (QFD), also generally known as a way to represent the "voice of the customer" is a process for capturing customer requirements and translating them into requirements that can be used by designers, producers, and suppliers. As with many other

Tags qfd, life cycle, elicitation methods, fast, brainstorming, jad, requirements prioritization