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Concept
Software requirements
Summary
Software requirements for a system are the description of what the system should do, the service or services that it provides and the constraints on its operation. The IEEE Standard Glossary of Software Engineering Terminology defines a requirement as:
A condition or capability needed by a user to solve a problem or achieve an objective.
A condition or capability that must be met or possessed by a system or system component to satisfy a contract, standard, specification, or other formally imposed document.
A documented representation of a condition or capability as in 1 or 2.
The activities related to working with software requirements can broadly be broken down into elicitation, analysis, specification, and management.
Note that the wording Software requirements is additionally used in software release notes to explain, which depending software packages are required for a certain software to be built/installed/used.
Requirements elicitation
Elicitation is the gathering and discovery of requirements from stakeholders and other sources. A variety of techniques can be used such as joint application design (JAD) sessions, interviews, document analysis, focus groups, etc. Elicitation is the first step of requirements development.
Requirements analysis
Analysis is the logical breakdown that proceeds from elicitation. Analysis involves reaching a richer and more precise understanding of each requirement and representing sets of requirements in multiple, complementary ways.
Requirements Triage or prioritization of requirements is another activity which often follows analysis. This relates to Agile software development in planning phase, e.g. by Planning poker, however it might not be the same depending on the context and nature of project and requirements or product/service that is getting build.
Software requirements specification
Specification involves representing and storing the collected requirements knowledge in a persistent and well-organized fashion that facilitates effective communication and change management.
Official source
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