About the Authors Klaus Pohl holds a full professorship for Software Systems Engineering at the Institute for Computer Science and Business Information Systems (ICB) at University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. He was the scientific funding director of Lero, the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre. Currently he is the acting director of paluno—The Ruhr Institute for Software Technology—at the University of Duisburg- Essen. He received his Ph.D. and his habilitation in computer science from RWTH Aachen, Germany. Klaus is (co-)author of more than 250 peer-reviewed publications and several text books. He served as Program and General Chair for many international and national conferences including the 35th ACM/IEEE Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2013). As consultant, assessor, and expert he supports small and multi-national companies, research institutes, and public funded research programs. Klaus is co-founder of the IREB e.V. (International Requirements Engineering Board). You can find more information on https://sse.uni-due.de. Chris Rupp—SOPHIST-in-chief (formally: founder and executive partner of the SOPHIST GmbH), chief consultant, coach and trainer. Looking back over 25 years of professional experience, a lot has come up: a company . . . 6 books . . . 55 employees . . . countless articles and presentations . . . and a whole lot of experience. My passion for project consultation might account for the fact that, until now, I do not “only” manage, but I am still directly involved in projects and close to customers. What drives me is the vision to implement good ideas so that developers, contractual partners and users—both direct and indirect—face an intelligent, sophisticated and beneficial product. In doing so, I work with a range of methods and approaches in agile and non-agile environments. In order to standardize qualification for requirements engineers / business analysts, I founded the IREB e.V. (International Requirements Engineering Board). You can find further information on www.sophist.de. Klaus Pohl · Chris Rupp Requirements Engineering Fundamentals A Study Guide for the Certified Professional for Requirements Engineering Exam Foundation Level – IREB compliant 2nd Edition Klaus Pohl ([email protected]) Chris Rupp ([email protected]) Translated from German by Thorsten Weyer, Bastian Tenbergen, and Marta Tayeh. Editor: Michael Barabas Project Manager: Matthias Rossmanith Copyeditor: Judy Flynn Proofreader: James Johnson Layout and Type: Josef Hegele Cover design: Helmut Kraus, www.exclam.de Printer: Courier Printed in USA ISBN 978-1-937538-77-4 2nd Edition 2015 © 2015 by Klaus Pohl and Chris Rupp Rocky Nook Inc. 802 East Cota St., 3rd Floor Santa Barbara, CA 93103 www.rockynook.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Pohl, Klaus. Requirements engineering fundamentals : a study guide for the certified professional for requirements engineering exam, foundation level, IREB compliant / Klaus Pohl, Chris Rupp. -- 2nd edition. pages cm ISBN 978-1-937538-77-4 (softcover : alk. paper) 1. Software engineering--Examinations--Study guides. 2. System design--Examinations--Study guides. 3. Requirements engineering--Examinations--Study guides. 4. Electronic data processing documentation--Examinations--Study guides. I. Rupp, Chris. II. Title. QA76.758.P6413 2015 005.1076--dc23 2015009245 Many of the designations in this book used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are claimed as trademarks of their respective companies. Where those designations appear in this book, and Rocky Nook was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps. They are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies, they are not intended to convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the copyright owner. While reasonable care has been exercised in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Foreword Dear reader, With Requirements Engineering Fundamentals, you are holding the official text book of the Certified Professional for Requirements Engineering (CPRE) – Foundation Level certification in your hands. The 2nd edition of this book is aligned with the curriculum (version 2.2) of the International Requirements Engineering Board e.V. (IREB) and the IREB glossary. In addition, some minor defects of the 1st edition have been corrected. A short introduction to the IREB and the certification process can be found in the previous section “The Certified Professional for Requirements Engineering (CPRE) Exam”. The aim of this book is to aid you in your preparation for the certification examination of the Certified Professional for Requirements Engineering. The book is suited for your individual preparation for the examination as well as for companion literature to training courses offered by training providers. In addition to the book, you should consider the information about the preparation for the certification examination published on the IREB website (http://www.ireb.org/en). That additional information reflects updates of the curriculum (after version 2.2) and potentially amends this book with respect to some areas of interest. Errata to this book are published on the IREB website. Our decision to author this book collaboratively was not unjustified. The book at hand is meant to integrate long-lasting practical experiences with educational and research knowledge concerning the topic of requirements engineering, in particular for the Foundation Level of the Certified Professional for Requirements Engineering. As a consequence, this book is based on the two best-selling books in the German language about requirements engineering by the two main authors: Klaus Pohl: Requirements Engineering – Grundlagen, Prinzipien, Techniken. Published at dpunkt.verlag, Heidelberg, 2008. This book was written from a perspective of research and education and offers a structured discussion of the fundamentals, principles, and techniques of requirements engineering. (Also available in English: Requirements Engineering – Fundamentals, Principles, and Techniques. Springer, New York, 2010) Chris Rupp: Requirements-Engineering und -Management – Aus der Praxis von klassisch bis agil. Published at Hanser Fachbuchverlag, Munich, 2014. This book contains application-oriented knowledge about requirements engineering, which supports the requirements engineer in his or her daily practice. (Individual chapters also available in English on the SOPHIST website: http://www.sophist.de) We have chosen not to reference the two books listed above in the individual chapters of this book. You can find detailed additional information on the topics of this book in both of the books mentioned above. This book was made possible with the help of a number of people. Our special thanks go to Dirk Schüpferling and Thorsten Weyer for their contributions to this book and their outstanding commitment, without which this book would not have been possible. Many reviews and consistent support by other board members increased the quality of this book. We particularly thank all board members of the IREB for their active support. In addition, Urte Pautz of the Siemens AG; Christian Pikalek and Rainer Joppich of the SOPHIST GmbH (www.sophist.de); and Dr. Kim Lauenroth and Nelufar Ulfat-Bunyadi from “paluno – The Ruhr Institute for Software Technology” at the University of Duisburg-Essen (www.paluno.de) have contributed to individual sections of the book. Furthermore, we want to thank Thorsten Weyer and Bastian Tenbergen (paluno) as well as Marta Tayeh (SOPHIST GmbH) for their commitment towards translating this book from German into English. Thanks also to Philipp Schmidt and Dirk Schüpferling for their support in aligning this book to the IREB syllabus version 2.2. We also want to thank Christa Preisendanz, Dr. Michael Barabas, and Judy Flynn for their support in publishing this book. Klaus Pohl and Chris Rupp Essen and Nuremberg, February 2015 With Contributions from Karol Frühauf INFOGEM AG, SAQ Karol Frühauf studied in Bratislava and at RWTH Aachen, gaining his degree in computer engineering in 1975. He then spent 12 years at Brown, Boveri & Cie working as a programmer, head of quality and finally as a manager in network control technology. In 1987, Frühauf founded INFOGEM AG with Helmut Sandmayr, and the company has since gained a reputation as one of the leading system engineering consulting and training addresses in Switzerland. He is an honorary member of SAQ, the Swiss Association for Quality and was instrumental in the launch of the “Brückenwächter” (“Bridge Guard”) residence for artists and scientists in Štúrovo, Slovakia. Emmerich Fuchs