Tutorial T01: Writing Good Requirements

Description:

This tutorial is designed to make the participant aware of theimpact of requirements across the entire program life-cycle. It describes what is neededto write good requirements and other data that needs to be collected to managerequirements over a life-cycle. It helps the participants address problems that they arecurrently experiencing with requirements whether they are the originator, developer, orresponsible for verification.

The Testing Techniques Newsletter quoted IBM and Bell Laboratories as stating that 80%of errors found in testing were inserted in the requirements phase. Other horror stories,including the IBM debacle at the Olympics, continue to expose requirements problems andthe lack of understanding of the problems. IBM did not know the users’ needs norinterfaces, unfortunately IBM management thought the problem was that they did not doenough testing.

System engineers must understand the highest level requirement problems. Unless therequirements are verifiable, complete, and consistent all the analysis in the world andall the brilliant designers in a company cannot fix the problem.

This tutorial is of a practical nature, not theoretical. It addresses common problemsand fixes for the problems. Post class evaluations of the training are consistently in theexcellent category with high ratings on the applicability of what was learned. With thistraining organizations have been able to change the way they do business and proceed withtheir projects saving both time and money.

 There are three questions to be asked:

If the answer to either of the first two questions is yes and the answer to the thirdquestion is no, then this class is for you.

Intended Audience:

 All engineers and engineering managers whoare responsible for writing, reviewing, verifying, or developing lower level requirementscan benefit from this class.

Class Size:

 Limited to 50 participants.

Instructor:

Ivy Hooks is a nationally renowned expert in requirementsdevelopment and management who educates and consults organizations on the importance ofwriting good requirements. She is a charter member of INCOSE, a Fellow of the Society ofEngineers, and Associate Fellow of the AIAA, and a member of IEEE.

Ms. Hooks is currently president and CEO of Compliance Automation, Inc. She managed asmall business for the past twelve years performing work for companies that includeHughes, Kodak and Allied Signal and government organizations including NASA, NOAA, FAA,and the Navy.

Prior to her small business career, Ms. Hooks had a twenty year career with NASA whereshe was Manager of Flight Software Development for the Space Shuttle, Verification Managerof Flight Software for the Space Shuttle, and Integration Manager for the ShuttleSeparation Systems. She also was a manager in the Shuttle Program Office, ExecutiveAssistant to the Director of Engineering, and Executive Assistant to the Director of theJohnson Space Center.

Ms. Hooks is the recipient of the Washington D.C. Jaycee’s Arthur S. FlemmingAward for outstanding young civil servant, NASA’s Exceptional Service Medal,NASA’s Outstanding Speaker Award, as well as many other awards.

Proposed Course Outline:

 Module 1.   What you have to know before your writerequirements.

Module 2.   What you need in order to write requirements; whatmakes a good requirement; rules and examples for better requirements; how verification andrationale can improve requirements.

Module 3. Specification outlines; understanding interfaces; and how touse teams (concurrent engineering) when writing requirements.

Module 4.   How to improve your requirements process withvalidation, risk management, traceability, prioritization, change management, and metrics.

Each module includes exercises to enable the participants to use the materialsthey are learning immediately and thus to be able to apply what they learned when theyreturn to their jobs.