SMART requirements

Abstract

Systems Analysis, or as it is increasingly known as today, Requirements Engineering, is a time consuming, expensive but critical phase in software (and system) development. The "perfect" Requirements Specification should exhibit a number of qualities including correctness, completeness and consistency. Within a Requirements Specification individual requirements at the microscopic level should be justified, clear, unambiguous and verifiable. However, in many cases Systems Analysts or Requirements Engineers describe requirements which fall short of these demands. In addition, outside reviewers faced with presenting an independent qualitative assessment of a Requirements Specification have few guidelines to assist them. In this paper we present a simple technique, borrowed from objective setting in Management Psychology, to assist the construction and evaluation of individual requirements.