DOORS and ComplyPro are great at managing requirements. Essentially a database and a web interface to collect together system requirements and link to V&V evidence.
But engineers and subject-matter experts are reluctant to use them, because they aren’t conducive to flowing technical prose. And they don’t handle images, diagrams and tables well. So someone (usually the requirements manager) ends up cutting and pasting word documents into DOORS, and the engineers (from that point forward) deny any responsibility for the resulting system requirement specification.
But the advantages of a formal requirements management system are structure and traceability.
I propose a tool that looks like a text-creation application, but has implicit structure and prompts the author to link each paragraph of text. So every paragraph is indexed, and the creator is asked a few questions to categorise the text.
Also provides a stakeholder-shared “discuss” to identify priorities, and better linking to supporting evidence.
And recursive document references (i.e. not just “this document refers to this other document” but “this other document refers to this clause here, so if you change it, it will have a knock-on effect”-- Frankx, Oct 01 2019 (?) Trivial pursuit https://en.wikipedi...wiki/Trivial_PursuiA great way of making money if you are blessed with a good memory for facts. [8th of 7, Oct 01 2019] Pattern Language https://books.googl...tml?id=hwAHmktpk5ICRequirements written as patterns. [Frankx, Oct 02 2019] Last message to Creation https://en.wikipedi...ger_of_God_(Carina)Big finger. I mean light-years big. [Frankx, Oct 02 2019] //V&V // ?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Oct 01 2019 " Vegetarian & Vegan" ?
// the creator is asked a few questions to categorise the text.//
... to which the reply comes, "WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE" ?
This is acceptable as long as they aren't Pink or Orange questions .. on the whole we prefer Green questions.-- 8th of 7, Oct 01 2019 //pink or orange//...//green//
Sorry, I don’t understand. Could you explain please?
V&V - Verification and Validation. Core principles for delivering systems well. “Did I explain what it had to do properly” and “Does it do it”-- Frankx, Oct 01 2019 Something that fell by the wayside when they spec'd the FCS for the 737MAX ... <Collective sniggering/>
// Could you explain please? //
That dates you, too.
<link>-- 8th of 7, Oct 01 2019 We've experimented with using SBVR, a style-guide for writing requirements that is well suited to machine-reading and information extraction. It's a kind of bootstrapping vocabulary where you first define the terms you're going to use, in english, and then, using more english, lay out how they might legally interact with one another, and what kinds of relationships are acceptable.
Then, you can run a program to read all the text and generate a glossary, from this you can retrospectively apply markup to label/link everything together. We're planning to, once a bit more time presents itself, turn it into an entity graph. From that graph we ought to be able to extract the main components, demonstrate the flows, identify dead-ends and so on.
Once many of the definitions are setup, you plug these into an editor, and turn on live colouring - like in a code editor - this further guides the business into writing their specifications in parsable code - but only once a large enough corpus exists to make that feasible.
We're nowhere near reaching critical mass, but it feels like it might be a neat way of solving the documentation problem.-- zen_tom, Oct 02 2019 Neat. It’s only a question of database size and mass until they start writing their own stories.-- RayfordSteele, Oct 02 2019 [zen_tom] - wow, that sounds really interesting. Looked up SBVR and the idea is a good one - defining terms rigorously has got to be a good start, and extracting into parseable code sounds genius.
I know there are model-based requirements frameworks and requirement definition languages, but so far the problem I have faced is getting people (engineers and stakeholders) to use anything other than Word to document requirements.-- Frankx, Oct 02 2019 Have you tried threats, backed up by actual violence ? We recommend it; cheap, and highly effective.-- 8th of 7, Oct 02 2019 //threats//..//violence//
Yes, I’ve even tried actual face-to-face meetings with chocolate biscuits. Which are remarkably effective, but...
This is like a Pattern Language thing [link]. Lots of people are comfortable with writing words that describe what they want of a system. They’re used to Word and Excel as tools to write those things. But there are details that could be captured and documented well, in a structured way, with some small improvements. Forcing people to use a formal system is counterproductive- either they just don’t do it, or they farm the task out to the least-experienced expendable body, who doesn’t understand the details.-- Frankx, Oct 02 2019 //apologise for the inconvenience//
I mis-remembered.
GO STCK YOUR HEAD IN A PIG
... was the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
This [link] is the Creator’s last message-- Frankx, Oct 02 2019 random, halfbakery