A Requirements Analyst's Apprentice: A Proposal

Abstract

The Requirements Analyst's APprentice (RAAP) partially automates the modeling process involved in creating a software requirement. It uses knowledge of the specific domain and general experience regarding software requirements to guide decisions made in the construction of a requirement. RAAP assists the analyst by maintaining consistency, detecting redundancy of description, and analyzing completeness relative to a known body of requirements experience. RAAP is a tool to be used by an analyst in his dealings with the customer. It helps him translate the customer's informal ideas into a requirements knowledge base. RAAP will have the ability to present its internal representation of the requirement in document form. Document-based requirements analysis is the state of the art. A computer-based, knowledge-based analysis system can provide improvement in quality, efficiency and maintainability over document-based requirements analysis and thus advance the state of the art towards automatic programming. RAAP takes a new approach to automating software development by concentrating on the modeling process involved in system construction (as opposed to the model translation process.) By supporting the intelligent creation of perspicuous models, it is hoped that flaws will become self revealing and the quality of software can be improved. Assistance is proved or the creation of "correct" models and for the analysis of the implications of modeling decisions.