Key Learning Objectives

At the conclusion of this course, participants are expected to:

• have a familiarity with the principles of preparing effective requirements specifications
• knowledge based on pitfalls and pointers.

The knowledge and understanding obtained will assist in developing skills.

Participants are not expected to have substantial skills in requirements specification writing.

Training Method and Materials

The course is delivered using primarily presentation and focused discussion, plus workshop activities.

Participants will be provided with:

• a set of bound course notes covering the presentation material and workshop exercises
• complimentary access to PPI’s evolving Systems Engineering Goldmine

Do you Offer Tailoring of this Course?

Yes. All courses are tailored informally verbally in delivery by selecting, where possible, examples matched to the domains of interest to the class. We can also work with you to design a formally customized curriculum for the development of your people. We have done so for many client companies, and we would love to work with you to this end. We always suggest that a client takes the corresponding standard course prior to any customization. For systems engineering, this is because systems engineering is the problem-independent and solution technology-independent principles and supporting methods for the engineering of systems, based on systems thinking. So the objectives of customization need to be very clear and focused on adding further value. In practice, customization, if performed, usually becomes the replacement of examples and possibly the main workshop system with domain-specific equivalents. Substitution of the workshop system usually involves substantial redevelopment of courseware. Out of necessity, formal tailoring of courseware is performed on a fee basis.

1. Requirements Specifications

• the eight types of requirements and their significance to specification writing
• differences for software and services

2. Requirements Specification Types

• the ten types of requirements specification
• Requirements Specification Standards

3. Requirements Writing

• requirement writing template
• workshop – writing requirements using the parsing template
• requirements specification terminology
• terms to use with care
• requirements constructs: shall, should, will and may
• syntax in general – the helpful, the problematic, work-arounds
• linking
• cross-referencing
• reference to applicable documents
• using success criteria to express otherwise vague requirements
• workshop – a requirement specification in a sentence

4. Structuring Your Requirements Specification

• structuring a system requirements specification
• dealing with variants
• workshop – writing a scope section to deal with variants 
• dealing with states and modes
• functional versus design-oriented specifications
• workshop – classifying specified requirements as functional or design
• workshop – writing a functionally-oriented requirements specification
• workshop – writing a design-oriented requirements specification
• specifying other requirements types – environmental, resource, physical and other qualities

5. In Closing