Glossary Flashcards
Actor
Part of a use case diagram. A role, thing, event/timer, or external system that interacts with the proposed system. The actor either stimulates the system (provides input) or receives output. An actor is outside the system documented in the use case diagram.
Analysis
Taking elicited information and making sense of it, bridging from the existing situation to the new requirements. Deriving and refining elicited requirements in a repetitive, systematic way.
Association
Part of a use case diagram. Actors are connected to use
cases by associations. They are lines between the two, showing which actions (use cases) each actor is involved with.
Business requirements:
High-level considerations applicable at the client’s
organizational or department level that describe their overall goals, objectives, scope, justification, constraints, and stakeholders.
Capability
Something the new system needs to do. Capability equates to functionality.
Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI)
A road map to process improvement, originated by the Software Engineering Institute located at Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.). Has five levels or stages that organizations go through to improve their processes.
Champion
A stakeholder who ensures the project goes through. Pushes through and resolves any barriers.
Configuration control board (CCB)
A group of people, including project
manager, developers, end users, quality assurance representatives, and configuration management representatives, who meet periodically to assess
all change (enhancement, defect/bug) requests. The CCB determines whether the changes will be made, deferred, or not addressed based on business, technical, and user criteria.
Configuration Management (CM)
A documented procedure and process applied to control changes in functional and physical characteristics applied to all project and product deliverables, including the requirements. Prevents
unauthorized changes to the baselined requirements, and preserves revisions to the requirements documents.
Constraint
A type of non-functional requirement that puts limits or bounds on something. For example: “System must handle at least 300 queries an hour.” “System must cost no more than $100,000.”
Customer
The individual or organization that pays for the project results or system. May or may not be the sponsor, end user, or champion.
Developer
Anyone involved on a project on the IT (information technology) side, including (but not limited to) business analysts, requirements elicitors, system analysts, designers, programmers, testers, quality assurance and
configuration management experts.
Elicitation
The concept that gathering requirements involves more than just holding out your arms and expecting the stakeholders to throw you the requirements. Gathering the requirements involves really probing the users
and really understanding what they need and why they need it.
End user
A stakeholder that directly or indirectly interacts with the system by providing input or using output.
Functional requirement
What the system must do from the user’s perspective; i.e., capabilities provided to users and other interested parties.
Gap analysis
The process of identifying the difference (“gap”) between where your client is today, and where the client wants to be in the future, and of then identifying the new functionality to minimize or eliminate the gap.
The “gap” is best described in terms of a measurable quantity with units, such as time, but not as a percentage.
JAD
Joint Application Development
Joint Application Development
A formal technique involving stakeholders and developers working in a team environment to gather and document the requirements via an intense workshop. Also known as an accelerated and collaborative requirements development process.
Developed by IBM Canada. (This term is sometimes used informally for any accelerated team approach to requirements capture.)
CMMI
Capability Maturity Model Integrated
CCB
Configuration control board
CM
Configuration Management
Kano’s requirements
Look at both the spoken and unspoken user’s
requirements for a product, service, or process. Focus on the positive aspects of quality as perceived by the user: normal, expected, and exciting requirements. Part of Quality Function Deployment (QFD).
Key process areas (KPAs)
The main component of the CMMI. The
processes that an organization needs to focus on. For example, to move to Level 2, an organization focuses on six KPAs, then on seven more KPAs to move to Level 3. The KPAs are split between software engineering (e.g.,
software quality assurance, requirements management) and project
management. Requirements management is a Level 2 KPA.
KPAs
Key process areas
Non-functional requirement
Define characteristics of the system or product as a whole. Non-functional requirements support the functional requirements in areas including security, performance, availability, reliability, and resistance to failure, capacity, and more. Constraints are a major type
of non-functional requirement.
PRINCE, PRINCE2
Projects In Controlled Environments is a project
management method covering the organization, management, and control of projects. PRINCE was first developed in 1989 in the UK for IT project management. The latest version of the method, PRINCE2, enhances the method toward a generic, best-practice approach for the management of all types of projects.
Product scope
Product scope defines the features and functions that
characterize a product or service. The product requirements define the scope of the product, starting with the problem to be solved and the vision to be achieved through the solution of that problem.
Project scope
Project scope is defined by the work that must be done to deliver a product with the specified features and functions. Project scope is stated in a set of project requirements that include the product requirements,
the developers, the language used, the deadline imposed on the project, and the testers. Project requirements incorporate the full development life
cycle, of which the requirements development is one phase.
Prototype
An interactive model of a system that allows users to try out features before they are actually implemented in the system. Involves users and developers interacting to refine the model. Prototypes may be paper based or computer-based.
QFD
Quality Function Deployment
Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
A methodology to develop or refine a product, service, or process. Started in Japan in the 1960s, it is
implemented in both manufacturing and service industries. The work is carried out by a cross-functional team within the organization, focusing on what features matter most to the customer or user of the product or service.
Real requirements
Reflect the derived needs of users after structured and
collaborative analysis is finished.
Requirement
A requirement is a thing that is needed or wanted; a
statement defining a capability, characteristic, or constraint for a product, service, or event. Requirements define capabilities needed by a user to solve a problem to achieve an objective. These capabilities must be met or possessed by a product to satisfy a contract, standard, specification, or other formally imposed documentation.
Reverse engineering
Starting with code and working backward through
the life cycle to derive the design, then the analysis models, and finally the requirements for a project. Used on legacy systems that have no (or inadequate) documentation.
Role
The traits that an actor in a use case undertakes. Roles, not individual people or things, are modeled in use case diagrams. For example, an adult in the role of a parent, puts a child to bed, makes lunches, and drives to sporting events. That same adult in the role of employee goes to work and earns a paycheck.
Scope
Defines the boundaries for the proposed project, the sum of the products and services to be provided as a project. Scope definition sets the framework for the subsequent requirements development activities.
SWE
Software engineering
Software engineering (SWE)
The application of proven engineering principles to software development. Applies the laws of computer science to solving business problems.
Software Engineering Institute (SEI)
A group at Carnegie Mellon University (started in the 1980s) was funded by the U.S. Department of Development to identify best practices in organizations that were delivering quality software. Led to the CMM and CMMI, which the SEI still oversees.
See the website: www.sei.cmu.edu/.
Software requirement
Provide a detailed definition of the software components of a system. “The software shall …”