Page 48 - Software and Systems Requirements Engineering in Practice

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C C h a p t e r 2 : R e q u i r e m e n t s E n g i n e e r i n g A r t i f a c t M o d e l i n g 21 21
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Thus, the key components of requirements engineering artifact
modeling are
• An RE artifact model as a measurable reference model that
can be used to support interdisciplinary communication and
specifications development
• A process tailoring approach that specializes the RE artifact
model to specific organizational or project needs
• RE artifact-centered process guidelines that define completion
levels of the RE artifact model. The specified completion levels
form a baseline for measuring project progress and artifact
quality.
2.2 RE Taxonomy 1
It is important that all stakeholders and process participants in the
development of products understand the meaning of each
requirements engineering term to represent the same thing. If, for
example, customers, product managers, and manufacturing
understand the term “feature” to mean different things, there may be
difficulty with quality assurance tasks and related productivity. While
universal definitions exist for many terms in requirements engineering,
there is still disagreement within the RE research community as to the
meaning of some terms such as “nonfunctional requirement.”
Consequently, it may be necessary for an organization or project to
create its own set of definitions wherever there is the potential for
misunderstandings.
We recommend that a project or product team have a glossary of
terms. An enterprise-wide dictionary is always preferable but may
not be feasible; e.g., different parts of an organization may be working
in different domains.
A taxonomy is a collection of controlled vocabulary terms
organized into a hierarchical structure. Taxonomies are commonly
used to classify things; e.g., a taxonomy of the insect world. An
example of a taxonomy for requirements is given in Figure 2.1. In
well-structured taxonomies, each term has only one parent. However,
depending on need, it is possible to have poly-hierarchies where
a term can have more than one parent. Figure 2.2 illustrates the
difficulty of creating taxonomies; i.e., there may be multiple ways of
representing concepts. Note that a term can appear in more than one
place in a taxonomy.
1 www.metamodel.com/article.php?story=20030115211223271