Good quality requirements in unified process

Abstract

As supported by many empirical evidences since early 1970s, good quality requirements are the leading factor for a successful software development project that delivers a good quality product with originally specified features and functionalities, on time, and within the originally estimated budget. The challenge gets tougher and more critical when the competition in the market is severe, the number of customers on the world is rather limited and static, and the customer demands are high. As functioning in such a market, with the main goal to maintain the leading position of the previous versions of its Stressometer®, ABB has adopted a RUP®-based software development process in the new generation Stressometer systems development projects. Stressometer Unified Process (SUP) integrates the RUP essentials with some features of agile processes such as heavy involvement of various stakeholders, preparation of test cases before coding, and continuous testing during development. This chapter describes the essential quality characteristics of requirements -both individual and aggregates such as embodied in a use-case model or in a specification, analyses the relations among them, evaluates RUP regarding the means it provides or lacks for developing good quality requirements, and discusses how ABB Stressometer projects have tackled these shortcomings via SUP. © 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.