Software Engineering

17.5  Post-development process implementation (software requirements  
definition stage) .............................................................................................. 299
17.6  Software test and evaluation (software requirements definition stage) ............... 300
17.7  Reviews, milestones, and baselines (software requirements definition stage) ..... 301
The purpose of the software requirements definition stage of development is to trans-
late stakeholder needs, expectations, and constraints into a balanced and achievable set 
of software requirements. This involves developing the specifications for the software 
product, computing environment, and the post-development processes. A key artifact 
of this stage is a model of the business or embedded systems process it is intended to 
enable. The operational model forms the basis for deriving the software product, com-
puting environment, and software interface requirements. The computing environment 
imposes constraints on how the software product operates to support data transaction 
processes. The software requirements definition stage is focused on understanding the 
full range of data processing functions the software product must perform.
The operational model provides a basis for assessing the overall software perfor-
mance under a wide range of situations and workloads. The computing hardware, 
workstations, networks, and related technologies all contribute to the performance 
of the software solution. The computational environment should not be prematurely 
selected until the operational requirements are analyzed. Analysis of the operational 
environment establishes the integrated software performance requirements con-
strained by the computing equipment that comprises the computing environment. 
The software product may be designed to perform more efficiently with certain com-
puting equipment. The analysis conducted during this stage of development should 
result in architectural decisions that allocate requirements among the computing 
environment and the software product.

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