Discovering System Requirements

Terry Bahill
Systems and Industrial Engineering
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721-0020, USA
terry@sie.arizona.edu
http://www.sie.arizona.edu/sysengr/slides/reqs.ppt
Copyright © 1995 to 2004 Bahill

Customer dissatisfaction and cost overruns are often caused by poor requirements. Most poor requirements are produced by people who are not aware of the importance of well understood and well stated requirements. They may not be aware that there are good processes for developing requirements. One often hears the excuse that "We have deadlines to meet, we don't have time to waste writing the requirements."

This seminar provides a high-level overview of the system requirements process. It explains types of requirements, sources of requirements, and characteristics of good requirements. However, in the real world, the system requirements are seldom stated by the customer. Therefore, this seminar shows ways to help you work with your customer to discover the system requirements. It also explains terminology commonly used in the requirements development field, such as verification, validation, technical performance measures, and the various design reviews. This is an interactive workshop where students are encouraged to participate. In class exercises are designed to stimulate thought and discussion.

Reference [71]. The paper that this workshop is based on is located at http://www.sie.arizona.edu/sysengr/requirements/

This workshop is designed for engineers. This workshop requires an overhead projector (or PowerPoint and a computer projection system). This workshop takes four hours. Enrollment is limited to 30 people.