Bad software requirements can jeopardize projects. There is a considerable literature on requirements, but practice is far behind: what passes for requirements in industry usually consists of a few use cases or user stories, which are useful but not sufficient as a solution. Can we fix requirements engineering (known in other circles as business analysis) so that it is no longer the weak link in software engineering?
I will present ongoing work intended to help industry produce more useful requirements. It includes precise definitions of requirements concepts and a standard plan for requirements specifications, intended to replace the venerable but woefully obsolete IEEE standard from 1998. The plan contains four books covering the four “PEGS” of requirements engineering (which I will explain). The approach builds on existing knowledge to define a practical basis for requirements engineering and provide projects with precise and helpful guidelines.
Bertrand Meyer is Professor of Software Engineering and Provost at the Schaffhausen Institute of Technology in Switzerland and CTO of Eiffel Software (based in Santa Barbara). His is the author of several well-known books on software topics, particularly object technology, programming languages, software verification, and agile methods. He is a recipient of the ACM Software System Award and the IEEE Harlan Mills prize and an ACM Fellow. His previous ACM TechTalks were devoted to Design by Contract, agile methods, and concurrent programming.
