Nonfunctional Requirements: The Forgotten Needs

Nonfunctional requirements are an essential part of a holistic understanding of system requirements; yet many teams struggle with them. Some neglect nonfunctional requirements during requirements analysis, considering them as less important or supplemental. Or they specify them incompletely and with un-testable attributes. Analysts, developers, and business customers often struggle with when and how to define and document nonfunctional requirements. However, if these requirements are not defined with precision, you will probably not build the right product. Ellen Gottesdiener guides you through the different types of nonfunctional requirements: quality attributes, external interfaces, and design and implementation constraints. She surveys practical techniques to represent quality attributes and how to define their acceptance criteria. Learn to visualize external interfaces and explore ways to trace nonfunctional to functional requirements. By acknowledging the equal importance and value of nonfunctional requirements, your team will create requirements documentation that fully captures the product's needs.