Software Requirements

Requirements are gathered before developing a system. Then documented to deliver the final working product to the client. A developed system should have the capability to fulfil the requirements requested. The requirements may differ from one system to another depending on its stakeholders.

Stakeholders

Stakeholders have a relationship with the product, which is going to be developed by the developers. They can be directly or indirectly involved in the project. Stakeholders of a system can be project managers, system administrators, end-users, developers, maintainers, and security managers.

It is important to gather information from each stakeholder who has any involvement with the project. The reason behind this is each stakeholder may come up with different requirements. It is the responsibility of the person who is capable of analyzing the requirements and prioritizing them according to the needs and wants.

Software business analyst of an organization in the IT industry is responsible person for analyzing the requirements and documenting them properly. The software architect is the person who is responsible for identifying the architectural significance requirements. They check whether the final product developed meets the gathered requirements which are supposed to be.

Requirements are mainly two types, functional requirements and non-functional requirements. Let us look at a brief introduction about the functional requirements and non-functional requirements of a system.

Functional requirements

The requirements are based on specified functionalities of the software developed.

They are also known as non-behavioural requirements.

These requirements concentrate on the general functionalities of a system.

Examples of functional requirements are mentioned below.

• Input data to the system and fill out the form when required.
• Filter the needed data when it is required.
• Carry out proper operations at the required time.
• Provide the required output to the end-user.

Non-functional requirements

Describes the tasks which the system is supposed to have when an end-user starts to use the deployed final product.

They are important from the software architecture view.

They are the features that the end-user expects from the software when using it.

Examples of non-functional requirements are mentioned below.

• Performance
• Security
• Availability
• Maintainability
• Reliability

Conclusion

The final product which fulfils the client’s requirements is delivered. So when developing the product, it is a must to give importance to non-functional requirements as the functional requirements.