Tools and Techniques for Requirements Engineering and Management - Requirements Engineering and Management for Software Development Projects - page 193

13.7 Planguage
Planguage is developed by Tom Gilb for describing requirements as well as
software design. It is dealt with in much greater detail in Appendix B and therefore
not described here.
13.8 Final Words on Tools and Techniques in Requirements
Engineering and Management
All the tools and techniques described above, more or less, do aid requirements
engineering rather than management. Requirements management is basically
ensuring that the activity is carried out efficiently and effectively. Project plans
ensure that the activity is planned as described in Chap. 7 on planning. Ensuring that
requirements are included and fulfilled at every stage of software engineering is
achieved using the requirements traceability matrix which is discussed in Chap. 9 .
Changes are inevitable midway through any human endeavor and requirements
management is no exception. We discussed requirements change management in
Chap. 8 . The important aspect to be defined for effectively carrying out the activity is
the assignment of responsibilities to appropriate agencies and sharing it between the
organization and the individual. This aspect of roles and responsibilities is discussed
in Chap. 11 . The tools and techniques useful in these activities are discussed in the
cited chapters.
Now, let us address the question—which tool or technique is best suited to a
given scenario? I confess that there is no single right answer to this question. All
the tools and techniques discussed in this chapter help us in modeling the system
and capture the requirements so that we can understand it fully and thereby design
and build the ''right'' software system for our clients. Another important point I
would like to stress here is that the techniques described above are by no means
comprehensive. There are a plethora of models and diagrams available in software
engineering. Just to record all the models and diagrams available would take a full
book in itself.
One tool that is used across the board for modeling data and assisting us in the
design of the database is the ER diagram. I have not seen any other technique
being used to model data as much as ER diagrams are used.
But when it comes to modeling project requirements, there is diversity. SSADM
is still very much in use and looks to be there for some more time to come. UML
has stormed on to the scene and has been put to use in significant number of
projects. But it has been criticized too. In fact Ivar Jacobson who perhaps is more
responsible than anyone else in defining the UML has started another initiative to
define a new methodology for software engineering. The web site www.semat.org
is spearheading that initiative. Semat stands for Software Engineering Method and
Theory. It is proposed to release the new methodology by the year 2013.