Introduction to Software Engineering

 Requirement Engineering
Software Engineering: A Practitioner’s Approach, 7/e
by Roger S. Pressman

Software Engineering 9/e

By Ian Sommerville

Chapter 7 1
• Functional and non-Functional Requirements
• The Software Requirements Document
• Requirements Specification

Content to
complete 2
Requirements
Engineering
• The process of establishing the services that the customer
requires from a system and the constraints under which it
operates and is developed.
• The requirements themselves are the descriptions of the
system services and constraints that are generated during
the requirements engineering process.

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What is a
requirement?
• It may range from a high-level abstract statement
of a service or of a system constraint to a detailed
mathematical functional specification.

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 Types of
Requirement
• User requirements
Statements in natural language plus diagrams of the services
the system provides and its operational constraints. Written
for customers.
• System requirements
A structured document setting out detailed descriptions of
the system’s functions, services and operational constraints.
Defines what should be implemented so may be part of a
contract between client and contractor.

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Readers of different types of
requirements specification

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Functional and Non-Functional
Requirements
• Functional requirements
– Statements of services the system should provide, how the system
should react to particular inputs and how the system should
behave in particular situations.
– May state what the system should not do.
• Non-functional requirements
– Constraints on the services or functions offered by the system
such as timing constraints, constraints on the development
process, standards, etc.
– Often apply to the system as a whole rather than individual
features or services.
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Functional requirements
• Describe functionality or system services.
• Depend on the type of software, expected
users and the type of system where the
software is used.
• Functional user requirements may be high-
level statements of what the system should do.
• Functional system requirements should
describe the system services in detail.
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Functional Requirements
(cont..)

• Some of the more typical functional requirements

include
• Organization Rules
• Administrative functions
• Authentication
• Authorization levels
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Functional Requirements
completeness and
consistency
• In principle, requirements should be both complete and
consistent.
• Complete
• They should include descriptions of all facilities required.
• Consistent
• There should be no conflicts or contradictions in the
descriptions of the system facilities.
• In practice, it is impossible to produce a complete and
consistent requirements document.
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Non-functional
requirements
• These define system properties and constraints e.g.
reliability, response time and storage requirements.
Constraints are I/O device capability, system
representations, etc.
• Process requirements may also be specified mandating a
particular IDE, programming language or development
method.
• Non-functional requirements may be more critical than
functional requirements. If these are not met, the system
may be useless. 11
Non-Functional
Requirements
• Some typical non functional requirements are:
• Performance(Response time)
• Security
• Maintainability
• Availability
• Dependability
• Capacity 12
Non-functional Requirements
Implementation
• Non-functional requirements may affect the overall
architecture of a system rather than the individual components.
– For example, to ensure that performance requirements are met,
you may have to organize the system to minimize
communications between components.
• A single non-functional requirement, such as a security
requirement, may generate a number of related functional
requirements that define system services that are required.
– It may also generate requirements that restrict existing
requirements. 13
Metrics for specifying non-
Functional Requirements
Property Measure
Speed Processed transactions/second
User/event response time
Screen refresh time
Size Mbytes
Number of ROM chips
Ease of use Training time
Number of help frames
Reliability Mean time to failure
Probability of unavailability
Rate of failure occurrence
Availability
Robustness Time to restart after failure
Percentage of events causing failure
Probability of data corruption on failure 14
Functional and Non-Functional
Requirements Example

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Requirement
Documents

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The Software Requirements
Document
• The software requirements document is the official
statement of what is required of the system
developers.
• Should include both a definition of user
requirements and a specification of the system
requirements.
• It is NOT a design document. As far as possible, it
should set of WHAT the system should do rather
than HOW it should 17
Users of a Requirements
Document

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SRS: Requirements
document
• Information in requirements document depends on
type of system and the approach to development
used.
• Systems developed incrementally will, typically,
have less detail in the requirements document.
• Requirements documents standards have been
designed e.g. IEEE standard. These are mostly
applicable to the requirements for large systems
engineering projects. 19
 The Structure of a
Requirements Document
Chapter Description
Preface This should define the expected readership of the document and describe
its version history, including a rationale for the creation of a new version
and a summary of the changes made in each version.
Introduction This should describe the need for the system. It should briefly describe the
system’s functions and explain how it will work with other systems. It
should also describe how the system fits into the overall business or
strategic objectives of the organization commissioning the software.
Glossary This should define the technical terms used in the document. You should
not make assumptions about the experience or expertise of the reader.
User requirements Here, you describe the services provided for the user. The nonfunctional
definition system requirements should also be described in this section. This
description may use natural language, diagrams, or other notations that
are understandable to customers. Product and process standards that
must be followed should be specified.
System architecture This chapter should present a high-level overview of the anticipated
system architecture, showing the distribution of functions across system
modules. Architectural components that are reused should be highlighted.

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 The Structure of a
Requirements Document
Chapter Description
System This should describe the functional and nonfunctional requirements in more
requirements detail. If necessary, further detail may also be added to the nonfunctional
specification requirements. Interfaces to other systems may be defined.
System models This might include graphical system models showing the relationships between
the system components and the system and its environment. Examples of
possible models are object models, data-flow models, or semantic data models.
System evolution This should describe the fundamental assumptions on which the system is
based, and any anticipated changes due to hardware evolution, changing user
needs, and so on. This section is useful for system designers as it may help them
avoid design decisions that would constrain likely future changes to the system.
Appendices These should provide detailed, specific information that is related to the
application being developed; for example, hardware and database descriptions.
Hardware requirements define the minimal and optimal configurations for the
system. Database requirements define the logical organization of the data used
by the system and the relationships between data.
Index Several indexes to the document may be included. As well as a normal
alphabetic index, there may be an index of diagrams, an index of functions, and
so on.

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Ways of writing a System
Requirements Specification (SRS)
Notation Description
Natural language The requirements are written using numbered sentences in natural
language. Each sentence should express one requirement.

Structured natural The requirements are written in natural language on a standard form or
language template. Each field provides information about an aspect of the
requirement.
Design description This approach uses a language like a programming language, but with
languages more abstract features to specify the requirements by defining an
operational model of the system. This approach is now rarely used
although it can be useful for interface specifications.
Graphical notations Graphical models, supplemented by text annotations, are used to define
the functional requirements for the system; UML use case and sequence
diagrams are commonly used.
Mathematical These notations are based on mathematical concepts such as finite-state
specifications machines or sets. Although these unambiguous specifications can reduce
the ambiguity in a requirements document, most customers don’t
understand a formal specification. They cannot check that it represents
what they want and are reluctant to accept it as a system contract

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