Course

•		Techniques for modeling and verifying system requirements
•		Making requirements gathering and systems analysis work effectively together
All engineering disciplines use models to develop the products they intend to build. The reason is simple: Models help to uncover—and then clarify—the functional and data requirements for any product, including software systems. A poor set of requirements will cripple any project. Modeling the business and its requirements is a proven way of finding all the requirements and guaranteeing their accuracy. Once you know they are correct, you can use the requirements models as specifications for the designers and builders of the system. Learn How to Show What a System Is—Not Just What it Does You can describe a system by what it is and by what it does. For example, consider this typical statement from a requirements specification: “The product must calculate the cheapest fare.” Beyond this innocent description of what the system must do lies a complex set of rules, procedures, data, and functions. Requirements modeling discovers the rules for calculating the cheapest fare, the algorithms needed, and the data necessary to complete and support those calculations. In other words, you build a complete model of the system. You also can use models when eliciting requirements. A quickly sketched process model can be indispensible for displaying your understanding of the system during interviews. A data or class model reveals the policy of the system and any gaps are quickly discovered by a model constructed with your customer. A state model explains how a system behaves and thus clarifies the consequences of requirements. Put Techniques into Practice This seminar includes frequent opportunities to apply the illustrated techniques. You work with your instructor to build models and prove or disprove example requirements. You construct models to elicit requirements and then feed them back to see if your understanding matches that of your customer. Learn to evaluate when each of the models is useful and what degree of detail is necessary.

TAKE HOME BONUS:
Each public course participant receives a copy of James and Suzanne Robertson's book Complete Systems Analysis.
Valid for public courses only.