How do you balance the cost and effort of verification with the risk and impact of requirement defects?

1 Verification vs Validation

Verification and validation are two related but distinct activities that aim to ensure the quality of your system requirements. Verification is the process of checking whether your requirements are complete, consistent, correct, and testable. Validation is the process of confirming whether your requirements meet the needs and expectations of your stakeholders. Verification is usually done by the requirements engineers, while validation is done by the customers or users.

2 Verification Levels

When it comes to verifying system requirements, the complexity, criticality, and maturity of your project will determine the level of verification used. Review is the simplest and cheapest form of verification, but it may not detect all defects. Analysis is a formal or semi-formal evaluation of your requirements that can identify logical errors, inconsistencies, or incompleteness; however, it can be time-consuming and require specialized tools or skills. Testing is an empirical verification of your requirements that validates them against real-world scenarios; however, it can be expensive, incomplete, or unreliable.

3 Verification Strategies

When verifying your system requirements, you need to take into account the scope and complexity of your system, the level of detail and precision of your requirements, the availability and reliability of your verification methods and tools, the cost and effort of your verification activities, and the risk and impact of your requirement defects on your project. Depending on these factors, you can choose from different verification strategies such as incremental verification, risk-based verification or mixed verification. Incremental verification involves verifying requirements in small batches or iterations to reduce the backlog, detect defects early, and incorporate feedback quickly. Risk-based verification focuses on critical requirements while allocating resources accordingly. Mixed verification combines different levels and methods to achieve a balanced coverage and confidence of your requirements.

4 Verification Best Practices

In order to balance the cost and effort of verification with the risk and impact of requirement defects, you should adhere to some best practices, such as defining clear and measurable verification criteria and objectives, planning and scheduling your verification activities in advance, documenting and communicating your verification results and issues, tracking and resolving requirement defects quickly, and reviewing and improving your verification process. Verifying system requirements is not an easy task, but it is essential for the success of a software project. By following the concepts and best practices outlined in this article, you can effectively balance the cost and effort of verification with the risk and impact of requirement defects, while also ensuring that your system requirements are of high quality and value.

5 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?