Date: 26 Apr 2008
From: jyrki@diku.dk
Subject: Course description: Requirements development

Course description for a course to be offered in quarter 1, 2008

Course manager: Jyrki Katajainen

Other members of the course team: practioners from our industrial
partners (Danske Bank, ...)

Textbooks:

Karl Wiegers, Software Requirements, 2nd edition, Microsoft Press
(2003)

Soren Lauesen, Software Requirements: Styles and Techniques,
Addison-Wesley (2002)

Course home page: 

http://www.diku.dk/~jyrki/Course/Requirements-development

===

Betegnelse: Requirements development

Omfang: 7.5 ECTS

Tidsmæssig placering: Quarter 1, 2008; schema group B; offered once

Forutsætninger for deltagelse: One must have a permission to take
courses in our graduate program

Mål:

After the course the student should have skills to

1) do good requirements development,
2) write effective use cases,
3) write comprehensive and accurate requirements specifications,
4) validate that requirements match needs of users,
5) assess the quality of specifications produced by others, 
6) keep track of all requirements changes, and
7) disseminate the results of his or her work.

Indhold: 

Specifying requirements adequately is the key to success in systems
development. "Doing the right thing" is more important than just
"doing things right".  The purpose of this course is provide formal
training in requirements activities, including

1) requirements elicitation (finding and formulating requirements), 
2) requirements analysis (structuring requirements), 
3) requirements specification (writing a requirements specification), 
4) requirements validation (checking that requirements match demands), and
5) requirements management (handling requirements changes). 

Other upstream prerequisites for systems development (business
modelling and problem definition) will also be considered to provide a
wider perspective on requirements development.

The basic course components are lectures (given mainly by our
industrial partners), assignments, discussions, a workshop, and a
project exam.  There will be four assignments (one week each), which
are all compulsory, and a project (four weeks), which is done in
groups of 3-5 people. The topics of these activities are:

- Assignment 1: create a business case
- Assignment 2: write use cases
- Assignment 3: present an article
- Assignment 4: review a project plan
- Project: write a requirements specification for a real company; the
  students have to find a collaborating company or organization on
  their own.

Undervisnings- og arbejsformer: Weekly lectures, assignments, and
discussions; a workshop; and a final project

Sprogversion: English

Prøveform: Project exam with an oral defence; the project is done in
groups of 3-5 people, but the defence is individual

Censurform: Internal examiners

Bedømmelsesform: 7-scale grade

Krav om undervisingsdeltagelse: One has to pass all four assignments
before getting the right to start the project

Reeksamen: The same as the ordinary exam