Software Engineering

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CHAPTER 7 
Understanding Software Requirements
of trade-off studies to resolve. 
Table 7.1
 identifies the objectives and motivations of 
each class of stakeholder. The primary objectives of the SWE-IPT are to:
1. 
Solicit stakeholder needs and expectations.
2. 
Specify the software requirements for the product and post-development 
processes.
3. 
Generate the integrated technical plans for accomplishing the software develop-
ment effort.
4. 
Translate stakeholder requirements into a complete, specified architectural 
description.
5. 
Ensure that the software technical data package is sufficiently detailed to facili-
tate an efficient and effective software implementation.
6. 
Monitor the progress of development efforts and the establishment of post-
development processes.
7. 
Assess the impact of proposed changes to the software product to ensure that 
the change can be accommodated within available project resources.
The majority of these objectives involve software requirements. Software require-
ments must address the complete scope of the development effort, including the 
computing environment, software product and its interfaces, and post-development 
processes. Technical plans are derived from the software requirements, and the pro-
gress of the project team toward achieving project objectives is measured against 
the technical plans. Change proposals directly involve new or modifications to the 
requirement baseline that can be suggested by any stakeholder. Change requests 
affect the software product design that is expressed by the product architecture. This 
architecture is derived from the software requirements and is specified by the soft-
ware data package. Solicitation of stakeholder needs and expectations is necessary 
to understand the software product’s purpose, functions, features, and performance 
characteristics that determine the project scope and software requirements.
The objective of most interest, and thereby warrants further elaboration, con-
cerns the software technical data package. The technical data package is the col-
lection of technical drawings, diagrams, and specifications that is provided to the 
software implementation team to guide the programmatic design, coding, integra-
tion, and testing of the software product. Software implementation represents the 
construction or manufacturing activity in the housing or system development indus-
tries. The building architect generates a set of engineering plans and drawings that 
provides the details necessary for the construction team to build a house, building, 
bridge, or other structure. This includes a bill of material that identifies the types 
and quantities of building materials necessary to execute the architectural plans. 
In manufacturing, the engineering drawings or schematics are provided to the pro-
duction team that fabricates, assembles, integrates, and tests products to ensure 
compliance with the schematics. The software technical data package includes 
the architectural specifications, drawings, and diagrams necessary for the software 
product to be implemented. This includes a software bill of material that iden-
tifies and specifies every structural unit to be designed, coded, and tested during 

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