Planguage - Requirements Engineering and Management for Software Development Projects - page 250

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Term Explanation

Rule Any statement of a standard on how to write or carry out some part of a

systems engineering or business process

S
Safety Deviation A measure of the estimated-or-observed difference between a required

safety margin and the estimated or actual system attribute level

Safety Factor The dimensionless ratio of 'conscious over-design' that is either required

or actually applied to some part of the system

Safety Margin A scalar difference between a required defined target or constraint level,

and its calculated safety level derived using the appropriate safety
factor

Scalar An adjective used to describe objects, which passes or are measured using

at least one scale of measure

Scale A parameter used to define a scale of measure

Scale Impact Is an absolute numeric value on the scale of measure

Scale Uncertainty An estimate of the error margins for a specific scale impact

Scope Describes the extent of influence of something

Software
Engineering

The discipline of making software systems deliver the required value to all
stakeholders

Source A synonym for process input information

Specification Communicates one or more system ideas and/or descriptions to an intended

audience

Stakeholder Any person, group or object, which has some direct or indirect interest in a

system

Standards An official, written specification that guides a defined group of people in

doing a process. It is a best-known practice

Status The outcome of an evolution of a defined condition

Stretch A parameter used to define a somewhat more ambitious target level than

the committed goal or budget levels

Supports Used to indicate what an attribute is mainly intended to support

Survival A state where the system can exist

System (Planguage) Any useful subset of the universe that we choose to specify. It can be

conceptual or real. In Planguage a system can be described
fundamentally by a set of attributes

System Engineering An engineering process encompassing and managing all relevant system

stakeholder requirements, as well as all design solutions and necessary
technology, economic and political areas

T
Tag A term that serves to identify a statement, or set of statements,

unambiguously

Target A specified stakeholder-valued requirement which you are aiming to

deliver under specified conditions

Task A defined and limited piece of work

Test To plan and execute an analytical process on any system, product or

process, where we attempt to understand if the system performs as
expected or not

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