Requirements engineering standardization

Abstract

As requirements engineering becomes more widespread, practitioners have learned what works and what does not work, as well as how to communicate among themselves and with other specialists, leading to standards development efforts and an increasing number of standards. This is to be welcomed, because it reflects the maturity of the technology and the realization of the importance of the specialty. Of the many standardization efforts under way, six have been selected, based on their importance and their level of progress: (1) IEEE Standard 830 (software requirements specifications) revision; (2) Software Engineering Institute's systems engineering capability maturity model (SECMM); (3) National Council on Systems Engineering (NCOSE)/spl minus/requirements; (4) IEEE Draft Standard P1233 (system requirements specification); (5) MIL-STD-499B (systems engineering) revision; and (6) IEEE Task Force on Engineering of Computer-Based Systems (ECBS)/spl minus/requirements. Representatives of each of these efforts briefly present their current status and plans, how the standards will affect the way requirements engineering is performed, and how the standards will interact with each other.< >