Abstract
One of the most difficult tasks in any project is to establish precisely what the system requirements are. This is a problem faced by project managers from time immemorial, who recognize that getting it right at the start of a job is of the utmost importance. Engineers have long realized that a disciplined, organized and formalized approach must be used when evaluating systems requirements (whether that’s always been practised is another matter). This hasn’t been done through a sense of ‘doing the right thing’. No. Experience, frequently painful, has shown that such methods are necessary. In particular, with projects of any real size, they are absolutely essential.
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Further Reading
Gladden, G.R. (1982), Stop the life cycle, I want to get off, ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, Vol.7, No.2, April, pp35–39.
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© 1991 J. E. Cooling
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Cooling, J.E. (1991). First steps — requirements analysis and specification. In: Software Design for Real-time Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2957-0_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-2957-0_3
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