A Requirements Pattern: Succeeding in the Internet Economy (Information Technology) [Paperback]

Today's Internet-based software must be developed at a breakneck pace, and it must deliver unprecedented levels of performance, reliability, and availability. Success begins with absolute clarity about requirements. A Requirements Pattern helps developers and project team members gain that clarity, by presenting a proven pattern for building superior Internet-based software. Leading consultant Patricia Ferdinandi begins by demonstrating why requirements are so crucial in today's development environments, and why a modern requirements approach can make it far easier to build successful Internet software. This book introduces software requirements for functional project elements, non-functional elements, and quality levels. It demonstrates how to use requirements to build software that is flexible and can evolve to meet new business needs; how to ask the right questions; and how to manage the requirements process, specifying the most appropriate role for each participant. Ferdinandi even presents a full chapter of e-commerce "anti-patterns" that have proven to fail in real-world development -- and what to do instead. For all software engineers, systems analysts, quality control personnel, project leaders, and other participants in Internet application development projects.

Requirements definition is crucial to the success of any product, especially in volatile and fast­paced, Internet­based industries.

A Requirements Pattern offers a coherent and consistent approach to the entire requirements engineering process ensuring the practitioner’s success. The book covers everything from initial product concept through incremental feature implementation, offering special consideration for the unique challenges of Internet­based software development. The author presents a proven requirements framework that can be used for ensuring the quality and integrity of your requirements set. The requirements set framework coaches to elicit a complete set of requirements including those critical aspects beyond the software.

Three key themes support the information and advice put forth in this book. They are: understanding the breadth of requirements that comprise the Internet requirements set, properly managing the evolutionary process, and initiating parallel and coordinated development efforts for the Internet product.

This book examines:

Patricia L. Ferdinandi is the President of Strategic Business Decisions, Inc., a company specializing in requirements engineering, process improvement, and project management. During her career, she has been successful in the roles of requirements engineer, trainer, and program manager on numerous projects. An acknowledged requirements expert, she has spoken on the topic at many conferences and has written several articles for Software Testing, Software Development, Quality Engineering, and IEEE.