A comparison and evaluation of data requirement specification techniques in SSADM and the unified process

Abstract

During the analysis stage of a typical information system development process, user requirements concerning system functionality and data are captured and specified using requirement specification techniques. Most of these specification techniques are graphical (semi-formal), i.e. they involve modelling. This paper presents a comparison of data requirement specification techniques in SSADM, which is a strong data-centred method, and the Unified Process, an object-oriented method. In particular, we investigated how data groups (entities and classes), their attributes and relationships are identified, specified and validated in both methods. Data requirement specification techniques used in both methods are then evaluated against a set of detailed criteria based on five requirement specification quality attributes. Both methods seem to have a similar informal approach to producing initial data requirement specifications, but they differ when these initial models are refined. The refinement in SSADM is more rigorous. Therefore, this paper makes a few recommendations for the Unified Process.