Software Engineering - Old Questions

5. What are the five desirable characteristics of a good software requirements specification (SRS) document?

A software requirements specification (SRS) is a detailed description of a software system to be developed with its functional and non-functional requirements. The SRS is developed based the agreement between customer and contractors. It may include the use cases of how user is going to interact with software system. The software requirement specification document consistent of all necessary requirements required for project development.

Following are the five desirable characteristics of SRS:

1. Correctness: User review is used to ensure the correctness of requirements stated in the SRS. SRS is said to be correct if it covers all the requirements that are actually expected from the system.

2. Completeness: Completeness of SRS indicates every sense of completion including the numbering of all the pages, resolving the to be determined parts to as much extent as possible as well as covering all the functional and non-functional requirements properly.

3. Consistency: Requirements in SRS are said to be consistent if there are no conflicts between any set of requirements. Examples of conflict include differences in terminologies used at separate places, logical conflicts like time period of report generation, etc.

4. Unambiguousness: SRS is unambiguous when every fixed requirement has only one interpretation. This suggests that each element is uniquely interpreted. In case there is a method used with multiple definitions, the requirements report should determine the implications in the SRS so that it is clear and simple to understand.

5. Modifiability: SRS should be made as modifiable as likely and should be capable of quickly obtain changes to the system to some extent. Modifications should be perfectly indexed and cross-referenced.