Requirements Engineering: A Good Practice Guide [Paperback]

Ian Sommerville (Author), Pete Sawyer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0471974447 | ISBN-13: 978-0471974444 | Edition: 1

"A marvellous book.a unique focus on what practising engineers need to do." Watts Humphrey, Software Engineering Institute, USA Requirements Engineering A good practice guide Find more RE resources at this web support site http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/resources/re-gpg/ Visit our Web page! http://www.wiley.com/ compbooks/ Requirements engineering is the process of discovering, documenting and managing the requirements for a computer-based system. The goal of requirements engineering is to produce a set of system requirements which, as far as possible, is complete, consistent, relevant and reflects what the customer actually wants. Although this ideal is probably unattainable, the use of a systematic approach based on engineering principles leads to better requirements than the informal approach which is still commonly used. This book presents a set of guidelines which reflect the best practice in requirements engineering. Based on the authors' experience in research and in software and systems development, these guidelines explain in an easy-to-understand way how you can improve your requirements engineering processes. The guidelines are applicable for any type of application and, in general, apply to both systems and software engineering. The guidelines here range from simple 'common sense' to those which propose the introduction of complex new methods. The guidelines and process improvement schemes have been organised so that you can pick and choose according to your problems, goals and available budget. There are few dependencies between guidelines so you can introduce them in any order in your organisation. Guidelines presented in the book
* are consistent with ISO 9000 and CMM
* are ranked with cost/benefit analysis
* give implementation advice
* can be combined and applied to suit your organisation's needs
* are supported by a web page pointing to RE tools and resources

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Defining what the customer wants is often a difficult aspect of creating successful software. However, Ian Sommerville and Pete Sawyer handle the topic with intelligence and depth in Requirements Engineering: A Good Practice Guide. The authors provide practical advice on how to make sure you deliver quality software that the customer wants and needs, all within budget.

The text first outlines what requirements engineering is and how it fits into the software engineering process. The authors then use a question-and-answer approach, short chapters, and highlighted tips to show how to define and develop a process for creating reliable software in your organization. Sommerville and Sawyer consider some ad hoc ways to improve your customer requirements documents and some more rigorous approaches, such as ISO 9000 standards for software engineering and formal specifications (where the correctness of software can be proved mathematically). Requirements Engineering can be a little dry, but it covers a vital area of software design that can benefit almost all developers.

From the Publisher

"A marvellous book...a unique focus on what practicing engineers need to know." - Watts Humphrey, Software Engineering Institute. This book presents a set of guidelines which reflect the best practice in requirements engineering. Based on the authors' experience in research and in software and systems development, these guidelines explain in an easy=to-understand way how you can improve your requirements engineering processes. The guidelines are appliable for any type of application and apply to both systems and software engineering. The guidelines presented in the book are consistent with ISO 9000 and CMM, are ranked with cost/benefit analysis, give implementation advice, can be combined and applied to suit your organization's needs, and are supported by a web page pointing to RE toools and resources.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 404 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (April 29, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471974447
• ISBN-13: 978-0471974444
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,055,109 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for use at different levels, August 28, 1998

By 

Doug Childs ([e-mail]) (Atlanta) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Requirements Engineering: A Good Practice Guide (Paperback)

I've been in this part of the business for a while and I haven't seen anything quite like this book for requirements. A nice blend of theory and VERY practical advice, you can easily use the book in at several ways: 1. Better understanding of a particular techniques' effectiveness and context, for example use cases (called viewpoints here) or state-transition diagrams. 2. Flip through the book and see which guidelines you can most effectively apply to your current project, e.g. building a database or putting in a table of contents. 3. Evaluate your "maturity level" & determine how to improve your current requirements process.

I can't tell if would be helpful to someone who had never wrestled with serious requirements, but even then, it has a good bibliography & website.

Belongs on the analyst's working bookshelf.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Some decent suggestions, but fluff to content ratio is 5:1., August 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Requirements Engineering: A Good Practice Guide (Paperback)

There are some usable guidelines for requirements gathering, though I feel common sense would give you many of them. I think this book is watered down heavily to fill 350 pages; the content could have fit in 50 pages. The book was not thought out.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable advices, but not for beginners, December 4, 2000

By 

Christophe Addinquy (Paris, France) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Requirements Engineering: A Good Practice Guide (Paperback)

I found this book very insightfull, but it needs to have a first idea about what is the requirements engineering and how it's processed. Once you have this idea, this book helps you. You'll find here, essentially pieces of advices which looks like process patterns (in my opinion it should even improve the book to show these advices through a pattern form) to tackle specific problems whith requirements engineering. Moreover, these advices can be read separately. For the beginners, it mises a strong frame along the book to know what is exactly requirements management and so on. But I think the authors are right to do not try to satisfy everybody. As a weakness, I don't know why, but this book seems to be a bit old, where the edition date is only 1997, through a lot of details I feel to read a book written in the early 1980s. But this book is not about technology, so it's not a big weakness.