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doi:10.1016/S0950-5849(03)00100-9 
Copyright © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
On the interplay between consistency, completeness, and correctness in requirements evolution
Received 1 December 2002;
| Referred to by: | | Erratum to “On the interplay between consistency, completeness, and correctness in requirements evolution” Information and Software Technology, Volume 46, Issue 11, 1 September 2004, Pages 763-779 Didar Zowghi, Vincenzo Gervasi  PDF (225 K)
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| Referred to by: | | Erratum to “On the interplay between consistency, completeness, and correctness in requirements evolution” [Information and Software Technology 45 (2003) 993–1009] Information and Software Technology, Volume 46, Issue 1, 1 January 2004, Page 75 Didar Zowghi, Vincenzo Gervasi PDF (42 K)
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Abstract
The initial expression of requirements for a computer-based system is often informal and possibly vague. Requirements engineers need to examine this often incomplete and inconsistent brief expression of needs. Based on the available knowledge and expertise, assumptions are made and conclusions are deduced to transform this ‘rough sketch’ into more complete, consistent, and hence correct requirements. This paper addresses the question of how to characterize these properties in an evolutionary framework, and what relationships link these properties to a customer's view of correctness. Moreover, we describe in rigorous terms the different kinds of validation checks that must be performed on different parts of a requirements specification in order to ensure that errors (i.e. cases of inconsistency and incompleteness) are detected and marked as such, leading to better quality requirements.
Author Keywords: Software requirements; Consistency; Completeness; Evolutionary correctness assurance
Article Outline
- 1. Introduction
- 2. Related works
- 3. An evolutionary model of requirements correctness
- Requirements, domain, and specification, 2
- 3.2. On the evolution of R and D
- 3.3. Proving correctness
- 3.4. Handling failed proofs and non-refining evolution
- 4. A complete example
- 4.1. Problem statement
- 4.2. Requirements and domain evolution
- 4.3. A monotonic extension
- 4.4. A non-monotonic extension
- 4.5. Discussion
- 5. The three Cs in practice
- 5.1. Formality and informality
- 5.2. Tolerating inconsistency and incompleteness
- 5.3. Correctness measures and prioritization
- 5.4. Process issues
- 5.5. RE education and training
- 6. Conclusions and future works
- appendix a. Notation
- appendix b. The completeness proof for Section 4.2
- References
