Software Requirement Patterns (Best Practices)

This book is divided into two parts:

• Part I: Setting the Scene These four explanatory chapters open with Chapter 1, "Crash Course In Specifying Requirements," written for someone who is inexperienced at specifying requirements-but everyone should read it, because it states a few principles that are important to the rest of the book. Chapter 2, "The Contents of a Requirements Specification," describes the types of material, in addition to requirements, that belong in a requirements specification. The versions of Chapters 1 and 2 printed in the book are merely synopses of much longer, "full" versions that can be downloaded from the associated Web page (as described in the "Supporting Resources" section that follows). Chapter 3, "Requirement Pattern Concepts," explains what requirement patterns are all about: the basics, what each pattern contains, how they're organized (into domains), and related concepts. Chapter 4, "Using and Producing Requirement Patterns," explains how to use requirement patterns and to write your own.

• Part II: Requirement Pattern Catalog These are sets of patterns for types of requirements that occur repeatedly, to be used as a reference. It opens with a snapshot of the requirement patterns in this book and then has eight chapters (5 through 12) containing the requirement patterns themselves.

Bringing up the rear are a glossary of terms and acronyms used and encountered in the book, plus a list of references.

I advise that you read through Part I to understand what's going on. If Chapters 1 and 2 in the book don't tell you enough, refer to the Web page for the full versions. You don't need to devour Part II systematically: familiarize yourself with the patterns that it contains (unless you're an analyst keen for advancement!), and refer to it whenever you encounter a situation in which one of the patterns will help.