CSCI 6448

Assignment Description

The purpose of this assignment is to develop a requirements document for the team's proposed project. This document will be an informal description of the project's scope and background. These requirements will be formalized throughout the rest of the semester as the team applies the object-oriented techniques discussed in class.

The goals of this assignment include the following:

1. Build consensus among the team as to the desired functionality of the project.

2. Promote team building by facilitating awareness of the skills of each team member.

3. Provide a mechanism for early feedback from the Instructor and TA.

The requirements document must consist of at least the following sections:

• Background
• Assumptions and Constraints
• Functional Description
• User Descriptions
• Team Description
• Appendix: List of Questions

Be sure to include any citations made in these sections in a references section.

Background

Briefly describe the goals of the project and its surrounding context. Cite references to related material and describe the issues being addressed by the project.

Assumptions and Constraints

List any assumptions that the team makes with respect to the project. For instance, is the team depending on the existence of any external software entities in order to make the project feasible? Are there any platform restrictions associated with the project? etc.

Functional Description

List the functionality that the system will provide its end-users. A typical way to express this information is specifying system inputs and outputs. (The next team assignment will employ the technique of Use Cases).

User Descriptions

Identify the different types of end-users for the system. Define their responsibilities with respect to the system and the benefits they receive from using the system.

Note: Some teams will find it easier to describe the system's users before the system's functions. Either arrangement is fine and is left to team preference.

Team Description

Describe each member of the team, especially the background and skills each member brings to the project. Use this section as a way to get to know your teammates!

Appendix

Finally, the document should contain an appendix listing the questions the team has about the project.

Assignment Format

Acceptable formats for this assignment include a laser-printed document, a postscript file, or a PDF file. For the latter two formats, send an e-mail message to the Instructor and the TA containing the URL for the assignment. Note: The team should also construct an HTML version of the document. As we progress through the semester, the requirements document will be updated by changing the HTML version rather than requiring the team to hand in additional copies of the document.

Closing Comments

Remember that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to provide a complete description of the project at this time. This is one of the reasons that iteration is included as an evaluation criteria of the project overall. As the semester progresses, the team must update the requirements document to track the knowledge the team has about the project. For instance, the list of questions in the appendix should be updated with the answers to previous questions as well as listing new questions as they arise.