Requirements Engineering

Requirements gathering and analysis is the most important phase of software development. If done properly it reduces future maintenance costs. It can also stop projects that are unlikely to succeed before costs have become excessive. Di erent software systems require di erent approaches to requirements engineering. A mature requirements process can be based on a generic requirements process from which specialized processes can be adapted. We discuss such a generic process. The aim is to achieve for requirements engineering a capability level that is comparable to Level 3 of the Capability Maturity Model of SEI for the software process in general. We survey in some detail the parts of the process that deal with project purpose and feasibility, the techniques of requirements gathering, and the representation of requirements.