CONTACT:
Harvey Watson, Ph.D.
Requirements 
   Management
(210) 522-2668
 E-mail:  Harvey Watson

KEY TERMS:
 system
engineering
information system 
testing
software evaluation
conformance 
verification
software 
specification

Medical Systems Concepts and Architectures
Requirements Management

The Importance of Requirements Management

Click image to enlarge.

As shown in the figure, requirements kick off the systems engineering process. But unlike the player in the chosen metaphor, this initiator of action does not subsequently walk off the field. Requirements stay in the game, driving and defining:

  • Program costs

  • Schedules

  • Resources

  • Skills

  • Verification methods

While requirements themselves are the catalyst for the systems engineering process, requirement management is the all-important control mechanism. The ability to accurately capture, interpret, analyze, and track user requirements throughout a program's life cycle plays a key role in determining whether or not a program will be ultimately successful. How much of a role? Numerous companies have determined that 80% of all testing defects are inserted in the early requirements management stages.

The Stages of Requirements Management

  • Requirements Capture/Validation: Aiding the customer in producing clear need statements that reflect what is necessary, attainable, and verifiable.

  • Requirements Decomposition/Homogenization: Transforming the customer's desires into coherent, organized, allocable groupings of noncomplex requirement statements that system architects can rely on when developing a system solution.

  • Requirements Allocation/Specification: Managing the assignment and reassignment of requirements to the various system components. Producing and maintaining product baselines in requirement documents and specifications.

  • Requirements Traceability: Tracking requirements from source through the analysis, design, and testing processes to its ultimate satisfaction through a product delivered into the hands of the customer.

  • Requirements Verification: Ensuring all requirements are addressed by the developed system via testing. This demonstrates achievement of a program's overall goal: producing a product that meets the customer's need within the program's constraints.

SwRI Experience in Requirements Management

For program requirements, cradle to grave (i.e., capture to validation), Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has the skills, tools, and experience to capture, analyze, allocate, and track requirements.

  • Skills: Possessing broad capabilities in automation, electronic, and communications technologies, SwRI is well qualified to define, design and implement systems that meet customer needs.

  • Tools: SwRI has extensively employed state-of-the-art systems engineering tool sets (e.g., Ascent Logic Corporations RDD.COM®, IBM Rational® RequisitePro®) to manage extremely large (10,000 plus requirements) and complex (dozens of element relationships) requirement traceability matrices.

  • Experience: SwRI has demonstrated the ability to solicit requirements from diverse customer populations, facilitate agreement, and publish validated requirements that drive appropriate design decisions.

For more information on medical systems concepts and architectures capabilities at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) or how to contract with SwRI, please contact Harvey D. Watson, Ph.D. at hwatson@swri.org or (210) 522-2668, or Waring Worsham at wworsham@swri.org or (210) 522-3759. We offer you the best approach for addressing your medical systems needs.


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Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®), headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is a multidisciplinary, independent, nonprofit, applied engineering and physical sciences research and development organization with 11 technical divisions.