Software Requirements Division - An Interview Study at Saab AB, Electronic Defence Systems

摘要

Software requirements are a crucial part of software development.They are also part of the main reason whyprojects fail. The previous research in the area of softwarerequirements has not been focused on the division of softwarerequirements. This paper presents an interview studywith such a focus. Five people working at Saab AB, ElectronicDefence Systems, Operations G oteborg (Saab EDS)were interviewed about software requirements division andhow they conduct such divisions at Saab EDS. The respondentsanswers were summarized and analysed. The analysisshowed that Saab EDS divide software requirements intofour levels; customer, system, subsystem and lower level.The software requirements division are conducted throughgroup discussions. The basis of the division of software requirementsis indicated to be based upon expert knowledgeand that the software requirements division decisions arepeople dependent. The improvement that Saab EDS canproceed with, suggested by the paper author, is to take "softwarerequirements division decision"-notes to be able to keeptrack of the reasoning behind the software requirements divisiondecision.