Verification of Software Requirement Specification: Criteria and Techniques

Verification of Software requirement specification involves evaluating the software against the following criteria:

• the functions should be specified and well-defined
• References are complete
• Tools and other relevant documentations are included

Completeness
This criteria requires that the software specification contains all the necessary artifacts needed to provide a standard information system.

Consistency
This requires that the external specification should be consistent with the internal specification, which means that requirements would be traceable. It also requires that there is not ambiguity in the specification document. Also a particular requirement should not be in conflict with other requirements.

Verifiability
 Specification should be specific, unambiguous and quantifiable. It should have the means to prove that the system satisfies  the specified requirements.

Feasibility
This means that the based on the foreseeable possibilities, the software could be implemented. For the specification to be feasible:

• There should be enough resources to follow through
• It should be usable at the end
• It should be maintainable
• Specification should take risks into consideration

Techniques for Software Verification of Software Requirements Specification

We would cover the following techniques for Verification of Requirement specification. 

Static Analysis: can be implemented in two ways:

This technique involves carefully going through the specification documentation,  requirement documents, design, codes and other items without execution.

Static analysis can be implemented by the use of Checklist, which would contain a comprehensive list of the criteria for good requirement specification. Then the specification is examined to check if it harmonizes with various items in the checklist.

Static analysis can be implemented either by Manual Review or Tool Support

1. Manual Review: these approach includes the following types:

Informal Review: This approach does not have any well-defined formal procedure. It could be peer review

Walkthrough: This could also be informal but involves a review meeting led by tan author

Technical Review: This approach is a formal approach that involves review meetings with experts or preparatory meetings of reviewers

Inspection: This a formal process that is well-documented and led by a trained moderator.

Manual Review involves six steps which are the following:

The second method of Static analysis as mentioned previously is Tool Support. This method employs automated tools to carry out the review process.

The checking of the requirement specification could be carried out using state machines. Some tools are Yakindu Statechart Tools or IAR virtualState