At a Glance; Contents; About the Author; Acknowledgments; Part I: The Foundation of Requirements; Chapter 1: The Importance of Requirements; Requirements Conventions Used in the Book; Projects Used in This Book; FBI Record Management Project; Radiation Dosimetry Project; Basic Definitions; Definitions of Requirements-Related Terms; How Long Does It Take Requirements Engineers to…; What Makes a Good RE?; Personality Traits; Patience; Clarity of Thought; Flexibility; Extrovertism; Confidence; Negative Traits; Good Communications Skills; Responsiveness; Translator; Moderator PersuasivenessSummary; Challenges for Writing Effective Requirements; Insufficient Requirements; Scope; Requirements Creep; Volatility; Stove-Piped Requirements; Users Are Not Sure What They Need; User Needs Not Satisfied; Multiple Interpretations Cause Disagreements; Are the Requirements Verifiable?; Wasted Time and Resources Building the Wrong Functions; Summary; References; Exercises; Exercise 1; Exercise 2; Chapter 2: What Makes a Good Requirement?; Understanding Requirements; The Form of a Requirement; Dealing with Negatives in Requirements; Attributes of a Good Requirement; Accurate AtomicParent-Child Requirements; Complete; Completeness of an Individual Requirement; Completeness of a Group of Requirements; Concise; Consistent; Does Not Conflict with Other Requirements; Does Not Duplicate Other Requirements; Independent; Stand on Its Own; Implementation Independent; Prioritized; Realistic; Traceable; Traceability ; Traced to a Source; Unambiguous; Ambiguity in General; Subjective Terminology; Troublesome Parts of Speech; Passive Voice; Understandable by Stakeholders; Unique; Verifiable; Testing; Inspection; Demonstration; Simulation; Analysis; Wrap-Up of Verifiable One More Attribute: Modifiable Capability Within a Requirement; Types of Errors That Can Occur with Requirements; Dangerous or Toxic Requirements; Extra, Superfluous Requirements; Incomplete Requirements; Others; References; Exercises; Exercise 1; Exercise 2; Exercise 3; Exercise 4; Exercise 5; Chapter 3: Specialized Language; The Use of Language; Defining Specialized Terms; Acronyms and Abbreviations; Summary; Exercises; Exercise 1; Exercise 2; Part II: Types of Requirements; Chapter 4: Functional Requirements; Understanding Types of Requirements; Types of Functional Requirements Business RulesTransactions; Transaction Entry; Transaction Change; Transaction Errors; Administrative Functions; Authentication; Authorization Levels; Audit Tracking; External Interfaces; Certification Requirements; Searching and Reporting Requirements; Compliance, Legal, or Regulatory Requirements; Historical Data; Archiving; Structural; Algorithms; Database; Power; Network; Infrastructure; Backup and Recovery; Summary; Exercises; Exercise 1; Exercise 2; Chapter 5: Nonfunctional Requirements; The Types of Nonfunctional Requirements; Architectural; Capacity; Constraints; Documentation.

Learn how to create good requirements when designing hardware and software systems. While this book emphasizes writing traditional “shall” statements, it also provides guidance on use case design and creating user stories in support of agile methodologies. The book surveys modeling techniques and various tools that support requirements collection and analysis. You’ll learn to manage requirements, including discussions of document types and digital approaches using spreadsheets, generic databases, and dedicated requirements tools. Good, clear examples are presented, many related to real-world work the author has done during his career.