Managing Software Developement

0.3 Requirements Management and the Statement of Work

Dr. James E. Tomayko

Objective:

At the conclusion of this lesson:
  1. The student shall understand the effect of uncontrolled requirements creep.
  2. The student shall know the main characteristics of a statement of work and its use in controlling requirements creep.
  3. The student shall understand the intractability of non-functional requirements.

Activity One:Functional Versus Non-Functional Requirements

Read Thayer88, pp. 147-171 and answer the following:
  1. What is the difference between functional and non-functional requirements?
  2. Choose three examples of non-functional requirements. How would you represent them in a requirements document?

Activity Two: Controlling Requirements Creep

The single greatest source of time and cost overruns is adding requirements. No surprise there! A simple tool for controlling requirements creep is a statement of work. It can be used to reach an understanding of what will and will not be built in a particular iteration of development. Scan the TCAMS Requirements Analysis Document and the TCAMS Statement of Work. How does the statement of work relate to the requirements?

Activity Three: Requirements to Specification Exercise

Here is a set of requirements, change them into a specification and suggest what aspects might have to be prototyped [Warning: ambiguities exist. Work around them.]:

"We need a water-balloon thrower for automatic window-washing of a four-story building. The device has to wash the windows of an entire face of the building in less than ten minutes without stopping."

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