Mastering The Requirements Process, 2e

DESCRIPTION

It is widely recognized that incorrect requirements account for up to 60 percent of errors in software products, and yet the majority of software development organizations do not have a formal requirements process. Many organizations appear willing to spend huge amounts on fixing and altering poorly specified software, but seem unwilling to invest a much smaller amount to get the requirements right in the first place. Mastering the Requirements Process, Second Edition, sets out an industry-proven process for gathering and verifying requirements with an eye toward today's agile development environments. In this total update of the bestselling guide, the authors show how to discover precisely what the customer wants and needs while doing the minimum requirements work according to the project's level of agility. TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Acknowledgments page Foreword 1 What Are Requirements? Requirements and systems analysis - how they fit together. We introduce the specification template and the requirements shell, and tell you where this book will take you. 2 The Requirements Process An overview of the Volere process. We take you through the process from the blastoff - where the project is prepared - to the delivery of the requirements specification. 3 Project Blastoff Getting the project underway - what you need to get your requirements project off to a successful and effective start. 4 Event-driven Use Cases How to determine suitable partitions for the product - using business events as the starting point - and how to determine the best product to build. 5 Trawling for Requirements How to gather the requirements. We look at techniques for discovering, eliciting and inventing requirements. 6 Functional Requirements Functional requirements are things the products must do. Here we look at discovering and specifying the product's functionality. 7 Non-functional Requirements Non-functional requirements are the properties that the product must have. Here we describe how to discover and specify them. 8 Writing the Specification How to set all this down in a requirements specification. 9 Fit Criteria To overcome ambiguity, we introduce measurements for requirements. This makes the requirements testable so that you can know that the implementation matches the requirement. 10 Quality Gateway A device for preventing rogue requirements from becoming part of the specification.11 Prototyping and Scenarios How to bring the requirements to life and discover forgotten and undreamed of requirements. 12 Reusing Requirements Products are rarely completely unique. We show you how to take advantage of requirements that have already been written. 13 Taking Stock of the Specification A complete review of what you have written, together with the opportunity to remeasure and reevaluate the requirements. 14 Whither Requirements? What happens after the requirements are written? We look at requirements tools, publishing the specification, traceability, change and managing the requirements. Appendix A Volere Requirements Process Model A complete model of the requirements process. Appendix B Volere Requirements Specification Template A template for writing a requirements specification which can become the foundation of your requirements documents. Glossary Bibliography Index