What approaches can be taken to ensure the analysis stage of software engineering is successful?

Answer 1

Analysis is determining 'what' to build and design is determining 'how' to build it. So to ensure that the analysis stage of software engineering is successful requires that you focus purely on what needs to be built.

The first step is to understand how the software system will affect the operations of the organization. The core benefit of all software systems is that they reduce transaction costs for the operation; so it is very important to determine the business objectives for the project and ensure that they in fact do reduce the transaction costs of the organization.

Once the high level objectives for the software project are determined, then it is important to refine those objectives into a set of requirements that can be used to build the system. For example, I want a 2-story house is an objective, however, it is not detailed enough to build a house.

The same way that floor plans are created for a house, a software project needs to build a requirements plan that outlines all the functionality of the system and connects the business objectives to specific use cases.

The main output of the analysis stage is a set of use cases (or equivalent) that outline the functional and nonfunctional requirements of a system. To be successful these requirements need to be consistent and concise.

So the approaches to make sure that analysis of a software project is successful are:

• make sure that the business objectives are well defined
• refine those business objectives into use cases
• make sure that the requirements are consistent and concise

Design is determining how to build a system. It is the equivalent of transforming a floor plan into a set of blueprints for physical construction.

N.B. it can be demonstrated that use cases, properly done, are a best practice and lead to a 13.5% increase in productivity and an 18.5% increase in quality. User stories only lead to a 6.3% increase in productivity and a 9.2% increase in quality.