Quality Assurance in Requirements Management - Requirements Engineering and Management for Software Development Projects - page 101

Nor can peer review bring in the well-developed hunches and experience that a
managerial review can. Therefore, neither review can really be skipped.
In some organizations, group reviews are omitted altogether. True, group
reviews place an extra overhead on the project and the adage ''too many cooks
spoil the broth'' may become applicable. Group reviews come in handy especially
in projects handling new domains or of very large size. Group reviews have their
place and should be utilized in applicable cases.
6.4 Validation
Validation is confirmation, authentication or corroboration of a claim. A claim
may be that something is defect-free or something is working as intended. Vali-
dation confirms or rejects the claim.
IEEE standard 610 in its standard glossary of software engineering terminology
defines the term validation as ''The process of evaluating a system or component
during or at the end of the development process to determine whether it satisfies
specified requirements.''
The CMMI model document for development defines validation as ''Confir-
mation that the product, as provided (or as it will be provided), will fulfill its
intended use. In other words, validation ensures that 'you built the right thing.' The
purpose of Validation is to demonstrate that a product or product component
fulfills its intended use when placed in its intended environment.''
Validation includes powering up the appliance or product and testing its
functionality. Normally, validation is understood to be testing in the industry. But
in requirements engineering, we do not yet have a testable product. Therefore, we
need to adopt other means of validation. Here are some of the techniques that help
us in validating the requirements:
1. Brainstorming
2. Story boarding
3. Prototyping
4. Expert review
5. End user review.
Let us discuss each of these techniques in greater detail.
6.4.1 Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a technique wherein concerned and knowledgeable people gather
in an informal environment to give vent to free thinking. This is useful when a
specialist expert is not available for the subject at hand. Everyone in the group
shares their knowledge so that collectively the knowledge would be substantial.