REQUIREMENTS VALIDATION:
The work products produced as a consequence of requirements engineering are assessed for quality during a
validation step. Requirements validation examines the specification to ensure that all system requirements
have been stated unambiguously; that inconsistencies, omissions, and errors have been detected and
corrected; and that the work products conform to the standards established for the process, the project, and
the product.
The primary requirements validation mechanism is the formal technical review. The review team includes
system engineers, customers, users, and other stakeholders who examine the system specification 5 looking
for errors in content or interpretation, areas where clarification may be required, missing information,
inconsistencies , conflicting requirements, or unrealistic (unachievable) requirements.
Although the requirements validation review can be conducted in any manner that results in the discovery of
requirements errors, it is useful to examine each requirement against a set of checklist questions. The
following questions represent a small subset of those that might be asked:
Are requirements stated clearly? Can they be misinterpreted?
Is the source (e.g., a person, a regulation, a document) of the requirement identified? Has the final
statement of the requirement been examined by or against the original source?
Is the requirement bounded in quantitative terms?
What other requirements relate to this requirement? Are they clearly noted via a cross-reference
matrix or other mechanism?
Does the requirement violate any domain constraints?
Is the requirement testable? If so, can we specify tests (sometimes called validation criteria) to exercise
the requirement?
Is the requirement traceable to any system model that has been created?
Is the requirement traceable to overall system/product objectives?
Is the system specification structured in a way that leads to easy understanding, easy reference, and
easy translation into more technical work products?
Has an index for the specification been created?
Have requirements associated with system performance, behavior, and operational characteristics been
clearly stated? What requirements appear to be implicit?
