Measuring the Readability of Software Requirement Specifications: An Empirical Study

摘要

Requirements and specifications documents have become the grounding force of the modern software project. Their importance has been catapulted lately, as companies see them as both instruments that help to capture business rules and direct links to financial success or liability. Good requirements not only educate but they also keep all parties informed, bound and obligated throughout the project life cycle. Poor requirements, or inconsistent elicitation processes, often contribute to the development of undesirable products or to delivered functionality that does not meet the business need. A flawed system production could lead to significant financial exposure and possibly even the loss of significant sums of money to a provider or to the client—or to both. This reality has sparked a united call for IT-specific controls that ensure that requirements are gathered, created, maintained, validated, distributed, stored and versioned consistently by all involved parties.