University of Toronto Department of Computer Science CSC340F Information Systems Analysis and Design September 17 2004 Prof Steve Easterbrook Assignment 1 Formal Inspection of a Requirements Specification Due Date 9 20am Friday October 8 i e within 10 minutes of the start of the tutorial This assignment counts for 10 of the final grade Conduct a formal inspection of an existing requirements specification This project is designed to give you exposure real specifications and some practice at critiquing specifications In particular it is a chance to apply the ideas covered in the lectures to see how well requirements are specified in practice The project is to be carried out in teams of three Each team will submit one report I Doing the Assignment This assignment has ten steps They are 1 Select a Specification to inspect Several sample specifications will be made available on the course website within a few days of the release of this assignment You should choose one of these for your team to inspect You will also need to decide which portions of the specification to inspect if you don t think it is feasible to inspect the entire document in one meeting 2 Select an inspection process The course notes offer a number of ways of organizing an inspection You will also need to gather any supporting documents including checklists role descriptions defect recording forms etc 3 Familiarize yourself with the inspection forms There are forms for documenting the defects discovered before and during the inspection meeting and forms for summarizing the findings afterwards These forms will be available on the course website 4 Choose the roles for your team members One person will need to chair the meeting Another person will need to document the findings during the meeting Other roles may be needed depending on your chosen inspection process 5 Set a date time and place to conduct the inspection meeting Make sure all team members are available have at least 2 hours uninterrupted time and a quiet place to work 6 Prepare for the inspection Each team member should prepare for the inspection meeting by reading the specification and compiling an initial list of defects 7 Conduct the inspection meeting If your team is not prepared at the start of the meeting the chairperson should postpone the meeting and arrange an alternative date 8 Summarize the findings after the meeting Make sure someone collects all the forms together and summarizes the defects discovered 9 Write a report that describes the inspection process you used your key findings and a discusses any insights you gained both on the nature of requirements specifications and the nature of the inspection process For example if you had to do it again what would you do differently 10 Document your teamwork and complete a team report see attached form II What to Hand In Hand in your report at the start of your tutorial on the due date Reports not handed in within the first ten minutes of the tutorial will be treated as late The report describing your inspection should not exceed eight 8 pages not counting references appendices forms or tables It should include information on the following items 1 A brief description of the specification you chose to inspect with a brief rationale for why you selected it Include any general observations of the quality of the specification that you made prior to the inspection process 2 A description of the inspection process you used What roles did your inspectors take on How did you structure the inspection meeting 3 The results of the inspection Use the forms on the course website to document your inspection results Use continuation sheets if you run out of space on a form 4 A discussion of the lessons learnt from your inspection meeting Use the Inspection Lessons Learnt Questionnaire as a guide to help you think about what you learnt Written Presentation Requirements Be sure to include a cover page indicating the name of your team the names of all team members title of work course date and tutor s name Assignments will be judged on the basis of visual appearance grammatical correctness and quality of writing as well as their contents Please make sure that the text of your report is well structured using paragraphs full sentences and other features of a well written presentation The report must not consist of itemized lists of points except when reporting your inspection data Text font size should be either 10 or 12 points III Suggestions About Inspections Informal reviews happen all the time in software engineering e g any time when two or more people chat about or comment on various aspect of the software A formal inspection is a scheduled meeting with an agenda and a written output Furthermore it is technical in the sense that it concentrates on the technical aspects of a product rather than scheduling budgeting or other management concerns of the development process There are a variety of inspection types described in the literature with different names Formal technical reviews Fagan inspections etc Many of the principles are the same no matter which variety of inspection you use Objectives of a formal inspection process for requirements documents to uncover errors in function logic or understanding to verify that requirements are valid to ensure that standards are complied with to achieve uniformity of style quality etc across a project to collect data on error profiles so that these errors can be avoided on future projects to train junior software engineers by allowing them to review other s work to promote continuity across teams For programs formal inspection has been shown to be more effective than testing in ensuring that programs are error free Furthermore it can be used on products which cannot be tested such as specifications designs documentation manuals test plans etc Formal inspections generally have two main parts a scheduled review meeting and individual inspection by each member of the team prior to the scheduled meeting An inspection team should consist of between 3 and 7 people depending on how experienced the review leader is and how well the necessary types of expertise can be covered The review meeting should last for no more than 2 hours It should focus on a small manageable portion of a product not on the whole thing It should be held only after the author of that product has finished it but in plenty of time to take action on the results of the review All reviewers should agree on the
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