Restructuring requirements specifications for managing inconsistency and change: a case study
File(s)DTR98-1.pdf (257.56 KB)
Technical report
Author(s)
Russo, Alessandra
Nuseibeh, Bashar
Kramer, Jeff
Type
Report
Abstract
This paper describes our experiences in restructuring multi-perspective requirements specifications in order to identify and analyse inconsistencies and manage change. A partial, heterogeneous and reasonably large requirements specification from a NASA project was analysed and decomposed into a structure of "viewpoints", where each viewpoint encapsulates partial requirements of some system components described in the specification. Relationships between viewpoints were identified which included not only the interactions explicitly stated in the requirements but also some implicit and potentially problematic inter-dependencies. The restructuring process and a first informal analysis of the resulting relationships enabled the detection of inconsistencies and the definition of some interesting domain-dependent consistency rules. We believe that this restructuring into viewpoints also facilitated requirements understanding through partitioning, and requirements maintenance and evolution through explicit identification of the inter-viewpoint relationships.
Date Issued
1998-01-01
Citation
Departmental Technical Report: 98/1, 1998, pp.1-24
Publisher
Department of Computing, Imperial College London
Start Page
1
End Page
24
Journal / Book Title
Departmental Technical Report: 98/1
Copyright Statement
© 1996 The Author(s). This report is available open access under a CC-BY-NC-ND (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
Publication Status
Published