Better Software Magazine Articles

A Look at Rational's RequisitePro

Creating requirements involves tracking and documenting all of the criteria for a system's success. A requirements management tool, such as IBM Rational's RequisitePro, can support this effort. While the tool won't verify that the requirements are consistent, correct, complete, relevant, coherent, and testable, it can help manage the task more efficiently by allowing you to document, track, and maintain the requirements in an automated fashion.

Elfriede Dustin's picture Elfriede Dustin
Are Your Requirements Complete?

Every system contains at least one (and probably more) set of requirements that fits into one of these categories: the functional who, what, where, when, why, how, and the nonfunctional design and project constraints. No one method or technique captures all requirements, but this approach can assist quality engineers in identifying missing requirements. Our objective is to spot the gaps in the requirements sets—just as a Tetris player spots gaps in those moving blocks—as soon as possible.

Patricia L. Ferdinandi
Know Thy User

Testing, in its broadest sense, means ensuring that your visionaries and programmers are creating a helpful product that people will actually use. As the two authors of this installment of Bug Report illustrate, understanding how those users will operate your application is more than an exercise in empathy; it's a simple key to avoiding some real usability meltdowns.

Brian Marick
Quality Assurance and Testing

Brian Marick argues for using testers at the requirements analysis stage of a project. He says, "While QA is primarily about process, testing—my specialty—is about product. Whatever else a tester might do, she certainly eventually exercises the product with the aim of discovering problems a user might encounter. This essay is about that 'whatever else' the tester does."

Brian Marick
Book Review: Mastering the Requirements Process

Brian Lawrence points to Mastering the Requirements Process as a valuable reference book. The book presents a complete step-by-step method for gathering, modeling, and specifying requirements. Along the way the authors offer easy-to-understand and appropriate examples that nicely illustrate how to apply their techniques.

Brian Lawrence
Requirements When the Field Isn't Green

Most advice on requirements gathering is targeted for brand-new "green-field" projects. What about evolving projects? Here's a seven-point strategy for those of us working on maintenance, updates, and legacy documentation.

Karl E. Wiegers
Automating Requirements Traceability

Developing software to meet users' specific needs can be a difficult task. Verification and validation activities can help ensure that you are building the right software right.

Bill Councill
Karl Wiegers Describes Ten Requirements Traps to Avoid

Recognized requirements expert, Karl Wiegers, shares the symptoms and solutions for common requirements-related project problems, including inadequate customer involvement, vague and ambiguous requirements, inadequate change process, and scope creep.

Karl E. Wiegers
IS and IT Benchmarking: Current Status

Are you having trouble making a business case for benchmarking at your organization? Mark Czarnecki delivers his benchmarking expertise in a presentation designed to help participants impact their corporate culture as well as their benchmarking abilities. He reviews the current status of information systems and technology benchmarking, and he explains current benchmarking theory. The presentation also covers generalized database sources for benchmarking.

Mark Czarnecki, The Benchmarking Network, Inc.
Process Improvement in Large Organizations: Walking the Maze

Every problem-solving activity in an organization requires some learning. Both the stakeholders and the
facilitators of the organization need to learn as they go through change. This paper describes our first
experiences with facilitating process improvement and problem solving by focusing on congruence, building trust
relationships, systems thinking and lots of "letting go."

Nynke Fokma, Moebius Consultancy and Erwin van der Bij, Lucent Technologies

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