Republic of the Philippines

Laguna State Polytechnic University

ISO 9001:2015 Certified
Province of Laguna
Level I Institutionally Accredited

LSPU Self-Paced Learning Module (SLM)

Course CMSC 311 Software Engineering II
Sem/AY 2nd Semester/2020-2021
Module No. 3
Lesson Title Software Requirement Engineering
Week
Week 4&5: Duration of 2 weeks
Duration
Date April 12 – April 25, 2021
The process to gather the software requirements form client, and documentations.
Description
of the
Lesson

Learning Outcomes
Intended Students should be able to meet the following intended learning outcomes:
Learning  Knowledge on software requirements and description of features and
Outcomes functionalities of the target system.
 Knowledge in gathering software requirements from client.
Targets/ At the end of the lesson, students should be able to:
Objectives  Analyze and document software requirements from client.
 Develop and maintain sophisticated and descriptive systems requirements
specification document.

Student Learning Strategies

Online Activities A. Online Discussion via Google Meet

(Synchronous/ You will be directed to attend in a Five -Hour class discussion about
Software Requirement Engineering. To have access to the Online
Asynchronous) Discussion, refer to this link: ____________________.

The online discussion will happen on April 12 –April 25, 2021, from
7:00AM-12:00NN.

(For further instructions, refer to your Google Classroom and see the
schedule of activities for this module)

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LSPU-CCS Self-Paced Learning Modules: Introduction to Intelligent Systems
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
ISO 9001:2015 Certified
Province of Laguna
Level I Institutionally Accredited
B. Learning Guide Questions:
1. What is Software requirement engineering?
2. What is the process of requirement engineering?
Note: The insight that you will post on online discussion forum using Learning Management
System (LMS) will receive additional scores in class participation.

Lecture Guide

Requirement Engineering

The process to gather the software requirements from client, analyze and
document them is known as requirement engineering.
The goal of requirement engineering is to develop and maintain sophisticated
and descriptive ‘System Requirements Specification’ document.

Requirement Engineering Process

It is a four-step process, which includes –

 Feasibility Study
 Requirement Gathering
Offline Activities  Software Requirement Specification
(e-Learning/Self-  Software Requirement Validation
Paced) Let us see the process briefly -

Feasibility study

When the client approaches the organization for getting the desired product
developed, it comes up with rough idea about what all functions the software
must perform and which all features are expected from the software.
Referencing to this information, the analysts does a detailed study about
whether the desired system and its functionality are feasible to develop.
This feasibility study is focused towards goal of the organization. This study
analyzes whether the software product can be practically materialized in
terms of implementation, contribution of project to organization, cost
constraints and as per values and objectives of the organization. It explores
technical aspects of the project and product such as usability, maintainability,
productivity and integration ability.
The output of this phase should be a feasibility study report that should
contain adequate comments and recommendations for management about

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LSPU-CCS Self-Paced Learning Modules: Introduction to Intelligent Systems
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
ISO 9001:2015 Certified
Province of Laguna
Level I Institutionally Accredited

whether or not the project should be undertaken.

Requirement Gathering

If the feasibility report is positive towards undertaking the project, next phase
starts with gathering requirements from the user. Analysts and engineers
communicate with the client and end-users to know their ideas on what the
software should provide and which features they want the software to
include.

Software Requirement Specification

SRS is a document created by system analyst after the requirements are

collected from various stakeholders.
SRS defines how the intended software will interact with hardware, external
interfaces, speed of operation, response time of system, portability of software
across various platforms, maintainability, speed of recovery after crashing,
Security, Quality, Limitations etc.
The requirements received from client are written in natural language. It is
the responsibility of system analyst to document the requirements in technical
language so that they can be comprehended and useful by the software
development team.
SRS should come up with following features:

 User Requirements are expressed in natural language.

 Technical requirements are expressed in structured language, which is
used inside the organization.
 Design description should be written in Pseudo code.
 Format of Forms and GUI screen prints.
 Conditional and mathematical notations for DFDs etc.

Software Requirement Validation

After requirement specifications are developed, the requirements mentioned

in this document are validated. User might ask for illegal, impractical solution
or experts may interpret the requirements incorrectly. This results in huge
increase in cost if not nipped in the bud. Requirements can be checked against
following conditions -

 If they can be practically implemented

 If they are valid and as per functionality and domain of software

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LSPU-CCS Self-Paced Learning Modules: Introduction to Intelligent Systems
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
ISO 9001:2015 Certified
Province of Laguna
Level I Institutionally Accredited
 If there are any ambiguities
 If they are complete
 If they can be demonstrated

Requirement Elicitation Process

Requirement elicitation process can be depicted using the folloiwng diagram:

 Requirements gathering - The developers discuss with the client and

end users and know their expectations from the software.
 Organizing Requirements - The developers prioritize and arrange the
requirements in order of importance, urgency and convenience.
 Negotiation & discussion - If requirements are ambiguous or there are
some conflicts in requirements of various stakeholders, if they are, it is
then negotiated and discussed with stakeholders. Requirements may
then be prioritized and reasonably compromised.
The requirements come from various stakeholders. To remove the
ambiguity and conflicts, they are discussed for clarity and correctness.
Unrealistic requirements are compromised reasonably.

 Documentation - All formal & informal, functional and non-functional

requirements are documented and made available for next phase
processing.

Requirement Elicitation Techniques

Requirements Elicitation is the process to find out the requirements for an

intended software system by communicating with client, end users, system
users and others who have a stake in the software system development.
There are various ways to discover requirements

Interviews

Interviews are strong medium to collect requirements. Organization may

conduct several types of interviews such as:

 Structured (closed) interviews, where every single information to

gather is decided in advance, they follow pattern and matter of
discussion firmly.
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LSPU-CCS Self-Paced Learning Modules: Introduction to Intelligent Systems
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
ISO 9001:2015 Certified
Province of Laguna
Level I Institutionally Accredited
 Non-structured (open) interviews, where information to gather is not
decided in advance, more flexible and less biased.
 Oral interviews
 Written interviews
 One-to-one interviews which are held between two persons across the
table.
 Group interviews which are held between groups of participants. They
help to uncover any missing requirement as numerous people are
involved.

Surveys

Organization may conduct surveys among various stakeholders by querying

about their expectation and requirements from the upcoming system.

Questionnaires

A document with pre-defined set of objective questions and respective options

is handed over to all stakeholders to answer, which are collected and
compiled.
A shortcoming of this technique is, if an option for some issue is not
mentioned in the questionnaire, the issue might be left unattended.

Task analysis

Team of engineers and developers may analyze the operation for which the
new system is required. If the client already has some software to perform
certain operation, it is studied and requirements of proposed system are
collected.

Domain Analysis

Every software falls into some domain category. The expert people in the
domain can be a great help to analyze general and specific requirements.

Brainstorming

An informal debate is held among various stakeholders and all their inputs are
recorded for further requirements analysis.

Prototyping

Prototyping is building user interface without adding detail functionality for

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LSPU-CCS Self-Paced Learning Modules: Introduction to Intelligent Systems
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
ISO 9001:2015 Certified
Province of Laguna
Level I Institutionally Accredited

user to interpret the features of intended software product. It helps giving

better idea of requirements. If there is no software installed at client’s end for
developer’s reference and the client is not aware of its own requirements, the
developer creates a prototype based on initially mentioned requirements. The
prototype is shown to the client and the feedback is noted. The client feedback
serves as an input for requirement gathering.

Observation

Team of experts visit the client’s organization or workplace. They observe the
actual working of the existing installed systems. They observe the workflow at
client’s end and how execution problems are dealt. The team itself draws
some conclusions which aid to form requirements expected from the software.

Software Requirements Characteristics

Gathering software requirements is the foundation of the entire software

development project. Hence, they must be clear, correct and well-defined.
A complete Software Requirement Specifications must be:

 Clear
 Correct
 Consistent
 Coherent
 Comprehensible
 Modifiable
 Verifiable
 Prioritized
 Unambiguous
 Traceable
 Credible source

Software Requirements

We should try to understand what sort of requirements may arise in the

requirement elicitation phase and what kinds of requirements are expected
from the software system.
Broadly software requirements should be categorized in two categories:

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LSPU-CCS Self-Paced Learning Modules: Introduction to Intelligent Systems
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
ISO 9001:2015 Certified
Province of Laguna
Level I Institutionally Accredited

Functional Requirements

Requirements, which are related to functional aspect of software fall into this
category.
They define functions and functionality within and from the software system.
Examples -

 Search option given to user to search from various invoices.

 User should be able to mail any report to management.
 Users can be divided into groups and groups can be given separate
rights.
 Should comply business rules and administrative functions.
 Software is developed keeping downward compatibility intact.

Non-Functional Requirements

Requirements, which are not related to functional aspect of software, fall into
this category. They are implicit or expected characteristics of software, which
users make assumption of.
Non-functional requirements include -

 Security
 Logging
 Storage
 Configuration
 Performance
 Cost
 Interoperability
 Flexibility
 Disaster recovery
 Accessibility
Requirements are categorized logically as

 Must Have : Software cannot be said operational without them.

 Should have : Enhancing the functionality of software.
 Could have : Software can still properly function with these
requirements.

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LSPU-CCS Self-Paced Learning Modules: Introduction to Intelligent Systems
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
ISO 9001:2015 Certified
Province of Laguna
Level I Institutionally Accredited
 Wish list : These requirements do not map to any objectives of
software.
While developing software, ‘Must have’ must be implemented, ‘Should have’ is
a matter of debate with stakeholders and negation, whereas ‘could have’ and
‘wish list’ can be kept for software updates.

User Interface requirements

UI is an important part of any software or hardware or hybrid system. A

software is widely accepted if it is -

 easy to operate
 quick in response
 effectively handling operational errors
 providing simple yet consistent user interface
User acceptance majorly depends upon how user can use the software. UI is
the only way for users to perceive the system. A well performing software
system must also be equipped with attractive, clear, consistent and responsive
user interface. Otherwise the functionalities of software system can not be
used in convenient way. A system is said be good if it provides means to use it
efficiently. User interface requirements are briefly mentioned below -

 Content presentation
 Easy Navigation
 Simple interface
 Responsive
 Consistent UI elements
 Feedback mechanism
 Default settings
 Purposeful layout
 Strategical use of color and texture.
 Provide help information
 User centric approach
 Group based view settings.

Software System Analyst

System analyst in an IT organization is a person, who analyzes the

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LSPU-CCS Self-Paced Learning Modules: Introduction to Intelligent Systems
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
ISO 9001:2015 Certified
Province of Laguna
Level I Institutionally Accredited

requirement of proposed system and ensures that requirements are conceived

and documented properly & correctly. Role of an analyst starts during
Software Analysis Phase of SDLC. It is the responsibility of analyst to make
sure that the developed software meets the requirements of the client.
System Analysts have the following responsibilities:

 Analyzing and understanding requirements of intended software

 Understanding how the project will contribute in the organization
objectives
 Identify sources of requirement
 Validation of requirement
 Develop and implement requirement management plan
 Documentation of business, technical, process and product
requirements
 Coordination with clients to prioritize requirements and remove and
ambiguity
 Finalizing acceptance criteria with client and other stakeholders

Software Metrics and Measures

Software Measures can be understood as a process of quantifying and

symbolizing various attributes and aspects of software.
Software Metrics provide measures for various aspects of software process
and software product.
Software measures are fundamental requirement of software engineering.
They not only help to control the software development process but also aid to
keep quality of ultimate product excellent.
According to Tom DeMarco, a (Software Engineer), “You cannot control what
you cannot measure.” By his saying, it is very clear how important software
measures are.
Let us see some software metrics:
 Size Metrics - LOC (Lines of Code), mostly calculated in thousands of
delivered source code lines, denoted as KLOC.
Function Point Count is measure of the functionality provided by the
software. Function Point count defines the size of functional aspect of
software.

 Complexity Metrics - McCabe’s Cyclomatic complexity quantifies the

upper bound of the number of independent paths in a program, which is
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LSPU-CCS Self-Paced Learning Modules: Introduction to Intelligent Systems
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
ISO 9001:2015 Certified
Province of Laguna
Level I Institutionally Accredited

perceived as complexity of the program or its modules. It is represented

in terms of graph theory concepts by using control flow graph.
 Quality Metrics - Defects, their types and causes, consequence,
intensity of severity and their implications define the quality of
product.
The number of defects found in development process and number of
defects reported by the client after the product is installed or delivered
at client-end, define quality of product.

 Process Metrics - In various phases of SDLC, the methods and tools
used, the company standards and the performance of development are
software process metrics.
 Resource Metrics - Effort, time and various resources used, represents
metrics for resource measurement.

Summary

The software requirements are description of features and functionalities of

the target system. Requirements convey the expectations of users from the
software product. The requirements can be obvious or hidden, known or
unknown, expected or unexpected from client’s point of view.
A Software Project is the complete procedure of software development from
requirement gathering to testing and maintenance, carried out according to
the execution methodologies, in a specified period of time to achieve intended
software product.

Performance Tasks
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LSPU-CCS Self-Paced Learning Modules: Introduction to Intelligent Systems
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
ISO 9001:2015 Certified
Province of Laguna
Level I Institutionally Accredited

PT 1

Directions: Answer the ff questions

Based from your understanding, what are the steps in requirement engineering process?

PT 2

Directions: Based from the readings, what is the importance of a User Interface?

Understanding Directed Assessment

Learning Resources

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LSPU-CCS Self-Paced Learning Modules: Introduction to Intelligent Systems
 Republic of the Philippines
Laguna State Polytechnic University
ISO 9001:2015 Certified
Province of Laguna
Level I Institutionally Accredited
References
Book(s)

 The Software Development Project: Planning and Management: Wiley; 1 st Edition by Philip Bruce,
Sam M. Pederson (Feb. 4, 1982)
 Walker Royce. Software Project Management: A Unified Framework. Addison-Wesley Pub Co; 1 st
edition (Sept. 1998)

Web Reference(s)

 Capers Jones. Software Assessments, Benchmarks, and Best Practices. Addison-Wesley Pub Co; 1st
edition (April 28, 2000).
 Linda Westfall. 12 Steps to Useful Software Metrics. The Westfall Team, 2005.
 Stephen H. Kan. Metrics and Models in Software Quality Engineering. Addison-Wesley; 2nd
edition (2003).
 www.tutorialspoint.com/software_engineering

Suggested Reading(s)

 D. Gustafson, "Schaum's Outline of Software Engineering", McGraw-Hill, 2002, ISBN: 0071377948

 F. Brooks, "The Mythical Man-Month, 2nd ed.", Addison-Wesley, 1995, ISBN-10: 0201835959, ISBN-
13: 978-0201835953

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