Requirements Engineering

Requirements Storage

Requirements Engineering

Requirements
Elicitation

Requirements
Analysis

Requirements
Management
Requirements
Validation

Requirements Baseline
Requirements Change
Requirements Traceability

RED SUN Inc.

Requirements
Specification

Requirements Engineering
Requirements Engineering consists of:
1. Requirements Development:
Requirements

Elicitation

Requirements

Analysis

Requirements

Specification

Requirements

Verification & Validation

2. Requirements Management:
Requirements
Requirement

Baseline

Change Management

Requirements

Traceability

RED SUN Inc.

The Facts About Requirements

Most BIM efforts are increasing in size and
complexity and require an iterative l p i l p l i
development approach.
Requirements will change over the life of
the project due to changes in technology,
user needs, and the environment.
Requirements continue to change as
more information is obtained during
development.
Requirements drive the verification and
test process.
RED SUN Inc.

Managing Changes
Successful BIM systems always evolve as the
environment in which these systems operate change,
causing stakeholder requirements to change.
Managing changes is a fundamental activity in
Requirement Engineering.
Typical changes to requirements specifications include
adding or deleting requirements and fixing errors.
Requirements are added in response to changing
stakeholder needs or because they were missed in the
initial analysis.
Requirements are deleted usually during development
to forestall cost and schedule overruns, a practice
known as Requirements scrubbing.

RED SUN Inc.

Requirements Management
To reduce the risk of cost and schedule overruns by
establishing a process to control the continuing definition
of requirements as changes occur and unforeseen needs
arise and as knowledge is gained during development.
Traditional approaches that consider requirements must
be fully documented prior to development activities and
frozen for the life of the effort is no longer
feasible (Waterfall model).

Quality Requirements Management requires that

BIM Engineers follow a defined process to manage
requirements that consist of specification baseline,
change control, and traceability; and identifies how
stakeholders must be involved in the process
throughout the development life cycle.

RED SUN Inc.

Benefits
Document exactly what the BIM is
supposed to do.
Improve quality of requirements.
Better alignment with business goals.
More effective use of human resources.
Foster cooperative development
environment.
Verify that user needs have been
implemented and adequately tested.
RED SUN Inc.

Best Practices

th c ti n t t nh t v lm requirement

1. Understand the relationships among stakeholders

and involve them in the change process.
2. Identify requirements change by recognizing that
the need for change is one of the most
challenging aspects and can significantly impact
the project.
3. Manage the changes to requirements by
establishing formal change processes to ensure
that changes are addressed and implemented
appropriately.
4. Identify and track requirements attributes by
providing objective data for better decision
making.
5. Trace requirements by maintaining an information
path from source to implementation.
RED SUN Inc.

Requirements Attributes

thuc tnh c a requirement

Identify the key items of information that are

important for tracking the changes by maintaining
the following:
Unique identifier for each specific requirement.
Logical grouping that makes sense for the project.
Priority Implementation priority relative to other
requirements or a planned release (High, Med.,
Low).
Source Origin of the requirement.
Relationship to other requirements.
Risk Assessment of the risk to the project due to
the difficulty or complexity of this requirement, or
its volatility.
RED SUN Inc.

Requirements Baseline

l kt qu c a vng l p l y
requirement
Elicitation --> analysis -->
specification --> validation

Definition:
A specification or product that has been
formally reviewed and agreed upon, that
thereafter serves as the basis for further
development, and that can be changed only
through a formal change control process.
Every baselined requirement must have a
unique version number.
Once the project team establishes a requirements
baseline, the team must follow a change control
process to make business and technical decisions
about adding, deleting, altering requirements.
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Requirements Baseline
Documented and approved requirements will
serve as the basis for further development.
Approved requirements will be changed only
through a formal change control process.
Configuration management will store and control
the baseline.
All changes made to the baseline will be reviewed
and approved by a change board.
Requirements cannot be managed effectively
without requirements traceability.
ngun g c

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Requirements Baseline
Requirements baseline is the set of functional and
quality attributes that the team has committed to
implement in a specific release.
Defining a baseline gives stakeholders a shared
understanding of the capabilities and properties
they can expect to see in the release.
At the time the requirements are baselined, they
must be placed under configuration control.
Subsequent changes can be made only through
the defined change control process.

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Requirement Releases

Requirements
Specification

Release 1

Release 2

Release 3

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Release 4

Release 5

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Requirements Management
Requirements cannot be managed effectively
without requirements traceability.
A requirement is traceable if you can discover:
Who suggested the requirement.
Why the requirement exists.
What requirements are related to it.
How that requirement relates to other
information such as systems designs,
implementations and user documentation.
yu cu ngy no, do ai, lin quan n g ---> d n
h ng g (t o document template record l i)

RED SUN Inc.

n nh ng nh

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Requirements Identification
It is essential that every requirement should have a
unique identification.
The most common approach is requirements
numbering based on chapter or section in the
requirements document.
Problems:
Numbers cannot be unambiguously assigned until
the document is complete.
Assigning chapter or section numbers is an implicit
classification of the requirement. This can mislead
readers of the document into thinking that the most
important relationships are with requirements in the
same section.
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Identification Techniques
Dynamic renumbering
Some word processing systems allow for automatic
renumbering of paragraphs and the inclusion of
cross-references. As you re-organize your
document and add new requirements, the system
keeps track of the cross-reference and
automatically renumbers your requirement
depending on its chapter, section and position
within the section.
Database record identification
When a requirement is identified it is entered in a
requirements database and a database record
identifier is assigned. This database identifier is
used in all subsequent references to the
requirement.
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Identification Techniques
Symbolic identification
Requirements can be identified by giving them
a symbolic name which is associated with the
requirement itself.
For example:

EFF-1, EFF-2, EFF-3 may be used for

requirements which relate to System
Efficiency.

SEC-1, SEC-2 may be used for requirements

which relate to Security.

RED SUN Inc.

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Storing Requirements
Requirements have to be stored in such a way
that they can be accessed easily and related to
other system requirements.
Requirements is an iterative process so
everyone who works on requirements should
have access to requirements documents to
review, add, delete, comment or provide
additional information (technology, platforms,
languages, etc.)
There are several storage techniques to store
requirements documents.
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Requirements Storing
Critical
Stakeholders

Requirement
Engineers

Major
Stakeholders

Requirements

BIM Project

Managers

Project Team

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How To Store Information? - 1

Requirements are documented and kept in
BIM tools (Word, Open office, etc.)
Advantages:
Support for structured requirements in sections.
Low cost and wide availability.
Easy to obtain and share.

Disadvantages:
Difficult to control from concurrent changes by different
stakeholders.
No explicit versioning and baselining of requirements.

RED SUN Inc.

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Word Processor Documents

Advantages
Requirements are all stored in the same place.
Requirements may be accessed by anyone.
It is easy to produce the final requirements document.
Disadvantages
Requirements dependencies must be externally
maintained.
Search facilities are limited.
Not possible to link requirements with proposed changes.
Not possible to have version control on individual
requirements.
No automated navigation from one requirement to
another.
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How To Store Information? - 2

Requirements are documented and kept in
collaborative tools (Microsofts Sharepoint etc.)
Advantages:
Support for collaboration.
Support grouping requirements into individual
documents (for example specific releases).
Support for structuring requirements.
Easy to obtain and share.

Disadvantages:
Difficult to control if requirements are distributed across
several documents.
No explicit versioning and baselining of requirements.

RED SUN Inc.

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Requirements Database
Each requirement is represented as one or more
database entities.
Database query language is used to access
requirements.
Advantages
Good query and navigation facilities.
Support for change and version management.
Disadvantages
Readers may not have the skills to access the
requirements database.
The link between the database and the
requirements document must be maintained.
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How To Store Information? - 3

Requirements are documented and kept in
requirement dedicated tools (Doors, Caliber,
etc.).
Advantages:
Support for collaboration.
Support for grouping requirements into individual
documents.
Support for versioning and baselining of requirements.
Easy to obtain and share.

Disadvantages:
Specialized tools require training.
High cost, especially for small projects.
Need license for every stakeholder.
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How To Store Information? - 4

Requirements are documented and kept in
general purpose Wiki systems.
Advantages:
Support for collaboration.
Support for grouping requirements into individual
documents.
Support for versioning and baselining of requirements.
Low cost, mostly open-source - Easy to share.

Disadvantages:
Specialized tools require training.
Difficult to export page content.
Missing replication of wiki content.
RED SUN Inc.

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How To Store Information? - 5

Requirements are documented and kept in RE
specific Wiki systems.
Advantages:
Support for collaboration.
Support for grouping requirements into individual
documents.
Support for versioning and baselining of requirements.
Low cost, mostly open-source - Easy to share.

Disadvantages:
Increased complexity of wiki syntax to denominate
metadata.
Missing replication of wiki content.

RED SUN Inc.

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Requirements Storage Choices

The statement of requirements:
If there is a need to store more than just simple
text, a database with multimedia capabilities may
be a better choice.
The number of requirements:
Larger systems usually need a database which is
designed to manage a very large volume of data
running on a specialized database server.
Teamwork, team distribution and computer support:
If the requirements are developed by a distributed
team of people, from different organizations, you
need a database which provides for remote, multisite access.
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Summary
Requirements Management requires that BIM
Engineers follow a defined process to manage
requirements that consists of specification
baseline, change control, and traceability, and
identifies how stakeholders must be involved in
the process throughout the development life
cycle.
Requirements management requires that each
requirement should be uniquely identified.
If a large number of requirements have to be
managed, the requirements should be stored in a
database and links between related requirements
should be maintained.

RED SUN Inc.

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Questions & Answers

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