Requirements, Traceability, and Tools

July 9, 2001

Location: Electrical Engineering/Computer Science Bldg, Room EE/Csi 3-180

Monday, 9 July, 2001
5:45-7:45 p.m. at The University of Minnesota
5:45 start for networking, 6:15 start for meeting
Electrical Engineering/Computer Science Bldg
Room EE/Csi 3-180
Minneapolis, MN

Abstract:

A tool like DOORS is necessary for success in requirements engineering, but it is not enough on its own. You need to combine DOORS with a good requirements engineering process. Praxis Critical Systems has developed REVEAL®, a state-of-the-art requirements engineering process. The key steps of the REVEAL process are:

define and describe the environment
elicit the real needs of all the stakeholders
systematically derive system specifications which demonstrably satisfy the stakeholders requirements
deal with stakeholder conflict
manage the relationships between requirements, specifications, design and implementation, typically using a tool like DOORS.

We have applied REVEAL to many projects including telecoms projects where time to market was the key project driver and high-velocity development was critical.

Integrating REVEAL information in DOORS involves a unique feature: Rich Traceability. Rich traceability records why a particular feature is needed, why it is believed to be adequate, what other behaviour is needed and what assumptions about the environment we are relying on.

Praxis Critical Systems and Telelogic are using REVEAL and DOORS to manage requirements on Railtrack's West Coast Route Modernisation project. This is a multi-billion-dollar project to upgrade hundreds of miles of railway in the UK, and involves many engineering disciplines and geographically dispersed project teams.

This talk will explain how integrating the REVEAL process and the DOORS tool allows the team to develop and maintain requirements for one of the largest systems engineering projects in the UK.

About the Speaker:

Anthony Hall is a Principal Consultant with Praxis Critical Systems Ltd. He is a specialist in requirements and specification methods and the development of software-intensive systems.

Anthony has worked for many years on the development of critical operational systems. During this time he has pioneered the application of formal methods to industrial practice. He was for example chief designer on CDIS, a successful air traffic information system and on a Certification Authority developed to ITSEC E6 standards.

Anthony has carried out requirements engineering for many projects in areas including aviation, railway signalling, secure systems and communications. He has also been closely involved in academic and professional developments in requirements engineering. Together with colleagues in Praxis Critical Systems he has brought together extensive practical experience and the latest research findings to develop REVEAL, a principled yet practical approach to requirements engineering.

As well as carrying out projects and consulting for clients, Anthony teaches and lectures widely. He has been a keynote speaker at the International Conference on Software Engineering, at the IEEE conference on Requirements Engineering and other conferences. He has published several papers on formal methods. During 1994 he spent a semester at Carnegie Mellon University, researching and teaching a course on Methods of Software Development in the Master of Software Engineering program.

Anthony received an MA and a D.Phil. from Oxford. He is a Fellow of the British Computer Society and a Chartered Engineer.