SEG3101 - Course Notes - - under construction

Note: The numbering of the topics is taken from the Syllabus. Some topics are presented in a different order to provide the background for certain lab and assignment activities.

1 - Basics of requirements engineering

• Book readings: Bray chap. 1 and 2 (or Wiegert chap. 1 and 3 or Lamsweerde chap. 1)
• SEG3101-ch1-1 - Basics - purpose and nature of requirements (PDF)
• SEG3101-ch1-2 - Basics - the RE process (PDF)
• Supplementary Material
• Bashar A. Nuseibeh and Steve M. Easterbrook, Requirements Engineering: A Roadmap. In A. C. W. Finkelstein (ed) The Future of Software Engineering, ACM Press, 2000
• Simson Garfinkel (Wired News): History's Worst Software Bugs

3.2 - Writing high-quality requirements

• Book readings:
  • On document structure: Bray section 5.4 (or Wiegert chap. 10 or Alexander "Writing better requirements" chap. 5)
  • On how to express requirements: Bray chap. 14 (or Wiegert chap. 10, section "Guidelines..." or Alexander "Writing better requirements" chap. 7)
• SEG3101-ch3-2 - Requirements documentation standards - IEEE-830 (PDF)
• SEG3101-ch3-3 - Writing Better Requirements (PDF)
• Supplementary Material
  • Example of the IEEE830 template in use

2 - Requirements inception and elicitation

• Book readings: Bray chap. 3 and 9 (or Wiegert chap. 2 and 5 through 9)
• SEG3101-ch2-1 - Inception (PDF)
• SEG3101-ch2-2 - IntroductionToElicitation (PDF)
• SEG3101-ch2-3 - ElicitationTechniques (PDF)
• Supplementary Material
  • Karl E. Wiegers: Vision and Scope Template
  • Karl E. Wiegers: Example of Vision and Scope Document
  • Daniel M. Berry: Requirements Engineering Lessons from House Building
  • Stephen Ferg: What's Wrong with Use Cases

3 - Requirements analysis and specification - modeling techniques

• Introduction to analysis and requirements specification
  • Book readings: Bray chap. 4 and 5
  • SEG3101-ch3-1 - Intro to Analysis and Specification (PDF)
• Non-functional requirements
  • Book readings: Wiegers chap. 12
  • SEG3101-ch3-4 - Non-Functional Requirements - Qualities (PDF)
• Goal-oriented modeling
  • Book readings: Lamsweerde chap.7 (and maybe some of chap. 8); a tutorial on URN (see below)
  • SEG3101-ch3-5 - Goal modeling - GRL (PDF)
  • SEG3101-ch3-5-bis - URN overview and tool (PDF)
• Functional modeling
  • Book readings: Bray chap. 4.3 through 4.5; chap. 10, 12 (or Lamsweerde chap. 13 for sequence and state diagram modeling)
  • SEG3101-ch3-6-a - Functional Modeling - Requirement patterns (PDF)
  • SEG3101-ch3-6-b - Structural Modeling (PDF)
  • SEG3101-ch3-6-c - Behavioral Modeling - Part 1 (PDF)
  • SEG3101-ch3-6-d - Behavioral Modeling - Part 2 (Use Case Maps) (PDF)
• Supplementary Material on UML
  • UML Standard (OMG): General information page - UML Specification (in this context, we are interested in the "superstructure", not so much the "infrastructure")
  • Bran Selic: UML 2.0 Tutorial
  • Tutorials (see also General information page) : Borland UML tutorial (link does not work), UML Introduction, UML 2.1 tutorial
• Supplementary Material on URN (that is, GRL and UCM)
  • URN Standard (ITU): General information page - Specification: URN Standard (ITU-T Recommendation Z.151) (available via Virtual Campus)
  • Tutorials:
    • Daniel Amyot and Gunter Mussbacher, Development of Telecommunications Standards and Services with the User Requirements Notation, Joint ITU-T and SDL Forum Society Workshop on ITU System Design Languages, Geneva, Switzerland, September 2008
    • Weiss and Amyot, Designing and Evolving Business Models with URN, MCeTech'05

4 - Requirements verification, and validation

• We go back to the theme of elicitation: Requirements Triage and Negotiation
  • Book readings: Wiegers chap. 14
  • SEG3101-ch2-4 - Requirements Triage and Negotiation (PDF)
  • Supplementary Material : Karl E. Wiegers: Requirements Prioritization Worksheet

• Requirements verification, and validation
  • Book readings: Wiegers chap. 15
  • SEG3101-ch4-1 - Verification and Valildation (PDF)
  • Supplementary Material : Karl E. Wiegers: Inspection Checklist

5 - Requirements management

• Book readings: A detailed discussion of these issues is in Wiegers chap. 18 through 21. There is also the chapter 9 in the book by Hull et al. on the topic of "DOORS - a Tool to Manage Requirements"
• SEG3101-ch5 - Management (PDF)
• Supplementary Material
  • Stephen D. Hendrick, Kathleen E. Hendrick, and Richard V. Heiman, Achieving ROI with Rational Requirements Management Tools. An IDC White Paper Sponsored by Rational Software
  • Jean-Louis Vignaud and Dominic Tavassoli, Managing Change - From Customer Request to Implementation. Telelogic User Group Conference 2005.
  • These kinds of considerations do not only apply in the area software development, but in many other contexts where complex systems are considered. Here is an example related to Ecosystem Sustainability and Health. Recently, I attended a talk about this topic at the IDRC. The speaker spoke about his experience with development projects in different parts of the world. He has initiated an international Network for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health and proposed a process/methodology for development projects that has many similarities with software requirements management and the software development process.

6 - Examples of requirements approaches in typical development processes

• Book readings: Wiegers chap. 22 is partly related to this topic
• SEG3101-ch6 - RE Processes (PDF)
• Supplementary Material
  • Alan M. Davis, Just Enough Requirements Management, 2004 (there is also a book by Davis with the same title and some Powerpoint slides from 2006 on the Virtual Campus)

Created: Sept. 5, 2010; revised: Dec. 2