Hi all
I was just thinking in the development world, most of the focus I see goes to the functionla requirements, I understand the nonfunctional ones are important.
I had an example of a cash machine, for example a nonfunctional requirement would be further to the approval of a cash withdrawal, the machine shall dispense cash in 5 seconds.
As this is a nonfunctional requirement, I see it needs to be highlighted with a main focus to the developers, because it is integral to the client satisfaction, but is there a way to keep a bigger influence of these nonfunctional requirements, maybe to shape it as an acceptance criteria? if so, how will you re-write it?
Many thanks,
Madi
Hello Madi,
Non-functional requirements (NFR) (or quality attributes) are to be given the same attention as the functional requirements - they are the 2 categories of what the BABOK defines as 'Solution Requirements'. Where the functional requirements focus on the behavior of the solution the NFRs specify how well the functional requirements must perform, they augment the functional requirements and have a constraining factor to them. NFRs are typically expressed as declarative statements in textual format.
On waterfall projects I worked on, it was quite clear to capture and maintained the NFRs in either in the same document as the functional requirements under the NFR heading, or in separate NFR document for the project. This depended on the organization IT / PMO standards. Some organizations' standards included the mandatory categories of the NFRs that projects must capture such as availability, portability, maintainability etc.,
On Agile projects I worked on, the NFRs were included in the backlog and 'treated' the same way as the functional requirements, we linked requirements to each other based on 'how' they were related (made it easier to assign to sprints) and they were traced the same way we traced the functional requirements. Although there is debate on weather NFRs specific to a user story / functional requirement should be included in the Acceptance Criteria, or DONE - the pros and cons is something to discuss and decide as a team to determine what works best for that project.
An example of how I would re-write the NFR you have in your question is: 'The <include specific type/name of machine, example: ATM> will dispense the approved amount of cash within 5 seconds after the cash withdrawal request is approved.'
Wish you the best,
Rosina
You should use PLANGUAGE - a way invented by Tom Gilb. Google for PLANGUAGE - here is first thing I found about it:
http://www.syque.com/quality_tools/tools/Tools104.htm
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