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REVEAL is a requirements engineering method that helps projects
to deliver the right systems for the right price, on time.
This page describes:
Why you need REVEAL
You may already be aware of some of the statistics about project
failure:
- 48% of the source for project failure can be attributed
to requirements problems.
- 41% of system errors are introduced in requirements.
- It costs 50 times more to fix an error during acceptance
test than during requirements.
REVEAL is designed to attack the root causes of project failure
by getting the requirements right at the start, and then managing
the evolution of the requirements through the project.
REVEAL has grown from over twenty years of our experience
in developing safety and security critical systems —
where failure could mean death or serious economic loss. We
have applied REVEAL and the principles underlying it to major
projects across rail, automotive, aerospace, defence, finance,
and many other sectors.
The Principles of REVEAL
The REVEAL method mixes three key ingredients:
- Soft skills, dealing with the human stakeholders
These soft skills include elicitation techniques, workshop
facilitation approaches and techniques, conflict identification
and resolution, verification with stakeholders.
- Solid techniques, ensuring precise, unambiguous, effective
requirements documents
We have solid techniques to apply to ensure that requirements
are stated at the right level, categorised wisely, are appropriately
precise and testable. The choice of notations and models
places a large part in this, integrating with your chosen
requirements engineering tools. Satisfaction arguments,
linking together the elements of the requirements document,
support impact analysis in an effective and practical way
- Underlying model, to explain why and how the elements
of requirements engineering fit together
Our underlying model is perhaps the most significant contribution
to requirements engineering since databases allowed requirements
tracing. By clearly explaining the distinction between user
requirements, black-box system specifications, internal
system design, and application domain knowledge, we bring
clarity and structure to a messy subject.
Is it just Requirements Engineering?
Our experience of applying our requirements engineering method
to the development of critical systems has convinced us that
elements of requirements engineering permeate throughout system
development. Requirements evolve and change throughout the
life of a project. Capturing requirements cannot be separated
from making the key design decisions and trade-offs. If you
are working in a critical arena, your safety or security analyses
will be generating requirements, and will be affecting your
design decisions.
For these reasons, REVEAL must integrate with your approach
to project management, your systems engineering activities,
and your safety or security analysis
How widely can REVEAL be applied?
REVEAL has been applied successfully to;
- software systems development (building software-intensive
systems)
- engineering projects (large scale engineering, with mixture
of mechanical, electrical, computer, people, etc.)
- processes design (developing human-based business processes)
- product strategy (developing and gaining agreement for
future direction for manufactured products)
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