Requirements Engineering Overview

Introduction

• Presented by: Bigoted Penson Starla
• Topic: Overview of the semester's course on Requirements Engineering.

Definition of Requirements Engineering

• Requirements Engineering consists of two parts:
  1. Requirements: What people want or need from a software system.
  2. Engineering: The systematic approach to fulfilling these requirements using good practices, guidelines, and frameworks.

Importance of Requirements Engineering

• Critical early part of software engineering that impacts the entire software lifecycle:
  • Eliciting requirements from stakeholders
  • Software design
  • Implementation and coding
  • Testing and integration
  • Deployment and maintenance
• Poor requirements engineering can lead to increased effort and complications later in the project.

Key Concepts in Requirements

• Requirements can include:
  • Wishes and needs of stakeholders (even if they are not aware of them)
  • Essential needs that stakeholders might not recognize
  • Constraints imposed by the technical environment or other systems.

Engineering Practices

• Engineering emphasizes systematic processes:
  • Following best practices and guidelines
  • Applying principles developed from years of experience.

Learning Goals for the Course

• Develop skills to elicit, define, document, and communicate requirements.
• Understand different forms of requirements:
  • Natural Language Requirements
  • Modeled Requirements (graphs, formulas, pseudocode)
• Learn the concept of Artifact-Based Requirements Engineering:
  • Artifacts include documentation, code, diagrams, etc.

Types of Requirements

• Non-Functional vs. Quality Requirements:
  • Non-functional: Anything not related to specific features.
  • Quality: Subcategory of non-functional, focusing on performance, reliability, etc.

Importance of Communication

• The Requirements Engineer serves as a communication bridge between:
  • Stakeholders (non-technical)
  • Software developers, designers, testers (technical)
• Essential to translate requirements and proposals between both groups.

Summary

• The course will cover:
  • How to elicit, document, and communicate requirements effectively.
  • Understanding the role of requirements engineers in software development.