A framework to measure and improve the quality of textual requirements

Abstract

Improving the quality of software demands quality controls since the very beginning of the development process, i. e., requirements capture and writing. Automating quality metrics may entail considerable savings, as opposed to tedious, manually performed evaluations. We present some indicators for measuring quality in textual requirements, as well as a tool that computes quality measures in a fully automated way. We want to emphasize that the final goal must be measure to improve. Reducing quality management to the acquisition of a numerical evaluation would crash against the strong opposition of requirements engineers themselves, who would not see in the measurement process the aid of a counselor, but a policeman mechanism of penalties. To avoid this, quality indicators must first of all point out concrete defects and provide suggestions for improvement. The final result will not only be an improvement in the quality of requirements, but also an improvement in the writing skills of requirements engineers. © 2011 Springer-Verlag London Limited.