(3) Software Requirements Specification (SRS)

™ Also called (Design Specification)

™ An abstract description of the S/W, which is basis for its design and
implementation. There should be a clear and direct relationship between
this document and the requirement specification, but the reader of this
are S/W designers.
™ Such a specification is included mostly as part of system contract and is the
basis for designing system acceptance tests.
™ Inputs, Process, Output, pre-conditions, post-conditions are the minimum
required.

Dr. Arshad A Shahid FAST-NU Islamabad Spring 2009 35

 SRS (2)
Structured Language Specification
♦ Natural Language is required because of understandability.

♦ Many notations have been developed which rely on natural language

in a controlled way using standard form and may use control
constructs, (derived from program languages) and also use graphical
highlighting.
♦ The form structure will vary depending on the requirement
structuring technique (functional, data, object e.t.c).
♦ Functional oriented Specifications are most common.

Dr. Arshad A Shahid FAST-NU Islamabad Spring 2009 36

♦ Form based approach fits well with formal mathematical
specification. A formal specification can be defined and paraphrased
in a set of forms or a formal specification can be defined from the
structured forms and used to refine the requirement specification.

♦ Other approaches (e.g. formal mathematical) tackle some problems of

specifications ambiguity but at the cost of perhaps, readability.

Dr. Arshad A Shahid FAST-NU Islamabad Spring 2009 37

 SRS (3)
♦ ATM example of structured requirement specification (functional approach)
Function: Check-Card-Validity
Description: Must ensure the card input by the user, is in date, contains account information e.t.c.
Inputs: Bank-identifiers, account No. , Expiry date
Source: Input read from card magnetic strip
Output: Card-Status (OK, invalid)
Destination: AutoTeller (Status passed to other parts of S/W)
Requires: Bank list, account format, today’ date.
Pre-condition: Card has been input and strip data read.
Post-Condition: Bank-identifier is in bank list and account number matches Account format,
expiry-date, today-date and card-status = OK
Side effects: None

Exercise: Design a format for object oriented specification technique

♦ A form based approach could obviously be automated.
♦ Pre and post conditions are used to specify the actions of the function.
♦ It is not an operational specification of what the function must do.
♦ The names used (in the form) must be defined elsewhere or if possible in data
dictionary.
Document Structure and Standards
Several recommended guides and standards
exist to help define the structure of
requirements documentation. These include
IEEE P1233/D3 guide, IEEE Std. 1233 guide,
IEEE Std. 830-1998, ISO/IEC 12119-1994.
IEEE Std 1362-1998 concept of operations
(ConOPs).

Dr. Arshad A Shahid FAST-NU Islamabad Spring 2009 39

 Software Requirements Engg

Requirements
Engineering
Process
Requireme
nts
Elicitation
Requireme
nts
Analysis
Requireme
nts
Specificatio
n
9 Requireme
nts
Validation
Requireme
nts
Manageme
nt
Requireme

Χ Process
Models Χ Requireme
nt Sources Χ nt
Classificati
on Χ
Requireme
nt
Definition
Document
Conduct of
Requireme
nts
Reviews
Change
Management

Requireme

Χ
Process nts
Conceptual

Χ
Actors Attributes
Elicitation Modeling

Χ
Software
Techniques Requirements Prototyping
Process Architectura Specification Requireme

Χ
Support l Design and (SRS) Model nts Tracing
and Requiremen Validation

Χ
Manageme ts Allocation Structure
nt and Acceptance
Standards Tests

Χ
Process Quality Requireme

Χ
and nt Document
Improvemen Negotiation Quality
t

Dr. Arshad A Shahid FAST-NU Islamabad Spring 2009 40

 Requirements Validation
„ One or more formally scheduled points in the
requirements engineering process where the
requirements are validated.
„ Concerned with the process of examining the
requirements document to ensure that it
defines the right system (i.e., the system that
the user expects).

Dr. Arshad A Shahid FAST-NU Islamabad Spring 2009 41

 Requirements Validation (2)
(1) The Conduct of Requirements Reviews
Common means of validation is by inspection or formal reviews of
the requirements document (s).
(2) Prototyping
validating the req. engineer’s interpretation of the system
requirements, as well as for eliciting new requirements.
(3) Model Validation
Quality of the models developed during analysis should be validated.
(4) Acceptance Test
„ Essential property of a requirement is that it should be possible to
validate that the finished product satisfies the requirement.
„ Identifying and designing acceptance test may be difficult for
non-functional requirements. To be validated, they must first be
analysed to the point where they can be expressed quantitatively.

Dr. Arshad A Shahid FAST-NU Islamabad Spring 2009 42

Requirements Validation (3)
There are seven criteria in the validation process:
1. Correctness
2. Consistency - no conflicting/ambiguous requirements
3. Completeness - describes all possible situations
4. Realistic - Requirements of the user environment and
practical
5. Needed - does each requirement describe something
needed by the customer
6. Verifiable - can tests be written to demonstrate meeting
the requirement
7. Traceable - trace requirement to system function
Dr. Arshad A Shahid FAST-NU Islamabad Spring 2009 43
 Requirements Management
An activity that spans the whole software life cycle. Fundamentally about
change management and the maintenance of the requirements.
(1) Change Management
Procedures that need to be in place and the analysis that should be
applied to proposed changes. Strong links to the configuration
management.
(2) Requirements Tracing
¾ Tracing is fundamental to performing impact analysis when requirements change.
¾ A requirement should be traceable backwards to the requirements and
stakeholders that motivated it.
¾ Conversely, a requirement should be traceable forwards into SRS and design
entities that satisfy it (And into the code module that implement it).
¾ Requirements trace for a typical project will form a complex directed acyclic
graph (DAG) of requirements. Modern requirements management tools have
improved this situation and the importance of tracing (and requirements
management in general) is starting to make an impact in software quality.

Dr. Arshad A Shahid FAST-NU Islamabad Spring 2009 44

 Software Requirements Engg

Requirements Requireme Requireme Requireme Requireme Requireme

Engineering nts nts nts nts nts
Process Elicitation Analysis Specificatio Validation Manageme
n nt

Χ
Requireme

Χ Process
Models Χ Requireme
nt Sources Χ nt
Classificati
on Χ
Requireme
nt
Definition
Document
Χ
Conduct of
Requireme
nts
Reviews
Change
Management

Requireme

Χ
Process nts
Conceptual

Χ Χ
Actors Attributes
Elicitation Modeling

Χ
Software
Techniques Prototyping

Χ
Requirements
Process Architectura Specification Requireme

Χ Χ
Support l Design and (SRS) Model nts Tracing
and Requiremen Validation

Χ
Manageme ts Allocation Structure
nt and
Standards
Χ Acceptance
Tests

Χ
Process Quality Requireme

Χ
and nt Document
Improvemen Negotiation Quality
t

Dr. Arshad A Shahid FAST-NU Islamabad Spring 2009 45

 Requirement Engineering Roadmap
„ Three radical ideas
„ Modeling and analysis cannot be performed
adequately in isolation from the organizational
and social context in which the new system will
have to operate
„ RE should not focus on specifying the
functionality of a new system, but instead
should concentrate on modeling indicative and
operative properties of the environment
„ Attempt to build consistent and complete
requirement models is futile.
Dr. Arshad A Shahid FAST-NU Islamabad Spring 2009 46
 What's the Future ?
„ New techniques for formally modeling and analyzing
properties of the environment
„ Richer model for capturing and analyzing non-
functional requirements
„ Bridging the gap between requirements elicitation
approaches.
„ Better understanding of software architectural
choices
„ Reuse of requirement models
„ Multidisciplinary training of requirements practitioners

Dr. Arshad A Shahid FAST-NU Islamabad Spring 2009 47