Software & Systems Requirements Engineering: In Practice [Hardcover]

Brian Berenbach (Author), Daniel Paulish (Author), Juergen Kazmeier (Author), Arnold Rudorfer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 26, 2009

Proven Software & Systems Requirements Engineering Techniques

"Requirements engineering is a discipline used primarily for large and complex applications. It is more formal than normal methods of gathering requirements, and this formality is needed for many large applications. The authors are experienced requirements engineers, and this book is a good compendium of sound advice based on practical experience." --Capers Jones, Chief Scientist Emeritus, Software Productivity Research

Deliver feature-rich products faster, cheaper, and more reliably using state-of-the-art SSRE methods and modeling procedures. Written by global experts, Software & Systems Requirements Engineering: In Practice explains how to effectively manage project objectives and user needs across the entire development lifecycle. Gather functional and quality attribute requirements, work with models, perform system tests, and verify compliance. You will also learn how to mitigate risks, avoid requirements creep, and sidestep the pitfalls associated with large, complex projects.

• Define and prioritize customer expectations using taxonomies
• Elicit and analyze functional and quality attribute requirements
• Develop artifact models, meta-models, and prototypes
• Manage platform and product line development requirements
• Derive and generate test cases from UML activity diagrams
• Deploy validation, verification, and rapid development procedures
• Handle RE for globally distributed software and system development projects 
• Perform hazard analysis, risk assessment, and threat modeling

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Brian Berenbach is the technical manager of the requirements engineering competency center at Siemens Corporate Research and an ACM distinguished engineer.

Daniel J. Paulish is a distinguished member of technical staff at Siemens Corporate Research, responsible for the Siemens Software Initiative in the Americas.

Juergen Kazmeier is vice president of the Software Engineering Services Division of Siemens IT Solutions and Services, headquartered in Vienna, Austria.

Arnold Rudorfer heads the Requirements Engineering (RE) Global Technology Field with Centers of Competence in Princeton (NJ, USA), Munich and Erlangen (Europe), as well as Beijing (China).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 356 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media; 1 edition (March 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071605479
• ISBN-13: 978-0071605472
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #708,597 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Daniel J. Paulish is a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at Siemens Corporate Research in Princeton, NJ, responsible for the Siemens Software Initiative in the Americas. He is a co-author of Software & Systems Requirements Engineering: In Practice, Software Metrics: A Practitioner's Guide to Improved Product Development, the author of Architecture-Centric Software Project Management: A Practical Guide, and a co-author of Global Software Development Handbook. He is formerly an industrial resident affiliate at the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), and he has done research on software measurement at Siemens Corporate Technology in Europe. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Practioner's Guide to Requirements, May 30, 2009

By 

Gail Borotto (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Software & Systems Requirements Engineering: In Practice (Hardcover)

Defining and managing requirements is not easy with simple, small systems but requirements definition and management in large, complex systems has to be set up, thought through and carefully managed with the best interest of clients or end users in mind. That is a lot of ground to cover and in many organizations, folks have difficulty figuring out who is responsible for what and when. This book walks through the details of how to approach and manage requirements in many different environments with various development methodologies. I particularly like the explanations and the way roles are laid out for managers, developers and support organizations, as well as stakeholders and end users.
Having worked with requirements as a practioner in commercial and government development shops, I wish I had had this book to help explain some of these key points for different methods and development approaches. Then, it would have been easier to concentrate on requirement's attributes, definition and analysis techniques, and traceability. If you are an agile shop, there is a direct approach on how to capture, group, iteratively develop and then test requirements. There is also an excellent chapter (8 Requirements Driven System Testing) that should be read by every software or system developer and testing group member. This is the book that you should have available for all development teams and make sure they use it!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars sound advice..., June 17, 2009

By 

T. Anderson (PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Software & Systems Requirements Engineering: In Practice (Hardcover)

This little book is packed with sound advice.

Pros-
The book covers a wide variety of topics and does so at a detailed enough level that you have a good understanding of the topic. They do not waste time on filler content. It covers building a requirement's taxonomy, eliciting requirements, Model-Driven Requirements Engineering, quality attributes, the importance of architecture, engineering platforms, requirements management, requirements-driven testing, rapid development techniques, hazard and threat analysis, distributed requirements engineering, and creating a requirements database.

As the book covers all these topics the authors made really great use of visualizing the material with really great diagrams.

They cover a lot of best practices and offer really sound advice. The tips on developing uses cases are great.

Each chapter comes with an extensive reference section.

Cons-
The publisher should have made the book a bit larger. The diagrams included in the book are some of the best I have seen, but they are very small. They could have made electronic versions available online (I guess I could blow them up on a copier).

The book was definitely written by people hanging out in the engineering world because they use a ton of acronyms and they are not always easy to figure out. They did not include all of them in the index.

I found it a little annoying that some of the key concepts/tools point to internal Siemens tools like the DesignAdvisor and URML (Unified Requirements Modeling Language).

All in all
I highly recommend this book. Its size allows me to carry it around with my laptop. I have been taking it everywhere for weeks now and every time I think of shelving it at work or at home I choose not to so I can review one or more of the sections one last time.

If you are involved in software development at all (developer, user, project manager, architect, tester, etc.) this is required reading.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Practical Guide, May 18, 2009

By 

Paul Miller - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Software & Systems Requirements Engineering: In Practice (Hardcover)

"Software & Systems Requirements Engineering In Practice" came to me at a very opportune time. The software development portion of my project was going to India and the management had decided Power Designer was going to be the next silver bullet to vastly improve the quality of our software. This book explained how to use any tool like Power Designer to produce artifacts that would lead to a buildable and testable product. The most important word in the title was practice. This practice part of this book explains how to avoid many pitfalls. The necessity of tracing requirements to test cases and source code was demonstrated and very important. I have seen many requirements which only have a vague resemblance of what is actually built. I am a novice at requirements engineering and this book gave me a very understandable approach to building useful and complete requirements.