Easy EARS: Rapid Application of the Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax

The Easy Approach to Requirements Syntax (EARS) offers a “small set of simple requirements structures” to capture and specify high-level stakeholder requirements. A group of seven authors was tasked with writing detailed requirements for subsystems of a network device. Following brief training and individual mentoring, the authors rewrote critical sections of their requirements using EARS templates in order to drive consistency, uncover gaps, and improve overall specification quality. A secondary objective was to pilot the EARS patterns themselves at Intel for consideration to add to corporate best practice guides for requirements engineering. With minimal investment, the authors were able to improve their requirements quality and also reported subjectively better experience with requirements authoring using EARS. The ease of teaching the syntax and rapid return on time investment in terms of requirements quality favors formal adoption of EARS as a best practice within a corporate environment.