One question that has long alluded me is - "is there a difference between a Requirements 'Catalogue' and 'Detailed Software Requirements Specification'"?
BCS ISEB Business Analysis suggests using a 'Catalogue' to capture individual 'Functional' requirements, where each requirement is typically captured on a single A4 page, as in the following example:
http://www.assistkd.com/pdf/ADAPT_Requirements_Catalogue_guidance.pdf
However, this isn't particularly effective in handling hundreds of requirements, and sub-requirements, where I've often noted approaches where requirements are simply listed with a simple numbering format. e.g.
1. Requirement
1.1 Sub-requirement 1
1.2 Sub-requirement 2
1.3 Sub-requirement 3
2. Requirement
2.1 Sub-requirement 1
.....
The later example being more useful for keeping requirements fairly atomic, but lacks the richness of the catalogue.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this subject?
I have noticed the same thing in the book. The whole thing seems unwieldy and not in an easily understandable format. Like many things in the book, it seems to be a suggestion as to good practice rather than what should be followed. For my current client, I have been recording requirements using SSM and putting the information into a spreadsheet, with the columns representing the different ways in which a requirement can be categorised, through BOSCAR, analysis 1, analysis 2 and analysis 3, PESTLE, levels of authority, influence etc. Doing it this way means I can shove in the requirements as they appear and then just quickly do a sort on the spreadsheet on a given set of columns to get the type of information I need for a specific part of the project. I don't know if my choice of elements to categorise on is standard or correct, but I would surmise so, as all of the models that are used in a business analysis project have outputs which must be taken account of. And a spreadsheet seems like a modern (as opposed to 'caveman') way of doing things.
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