WISQA.org - August 2002

Wisconsin Information Systems
Quality Assurance

Question #4: Today, we have some customers that document requirements, some that don't document them at all and some are somewhere in the middle. Often, the requirements are in different formats. We would like to have a consistent approach to documenting requirements and a good process to trace test cases back to the requirements. Any suggestions in the method and tools to use for documenting requirements and making the requirements traceable to the test cases would be much appreciated.

Answers:

We've found it very helpful to have a standard outline / template for defining requirements. One developer took a 30-page document and after she put it into our format it was only 5 pages.

It is helpful to give them an example of what 'good 'requirements look like.

When developing test cases, document which requirement(s) they pertain to. It would be nice to have an automated way to track that. There are requirements management tools, but those are often tied into an entire tool suite, which can get very expensive.

Involve testers earlier to provide input into requirement definition.

Testing group could not accept a product to test if there are no requirements in the standard format.

There should be a requirement review to assess, evaluate and sign-off on the requirements.