Requirements documentation: a systematic approach

Unless you have a complete and precise description of a product's requirements, it is very unlikely that those requirements will be satisfied. An incomplete or inconsistent requirements document can mislead developers. A collection of statements in English, or some other natural language, cannot be checked for completeness and will not be precise. Even if you translate an informal requirements statement into a mathematical language, and show that the result is complete and unambiguous, the original may still be faulty. This talk describes a sound procedure for documenting requirements - one that lets you know when your document is complete and consistent. Documents produced by following this procedure can be reviewed by potential users and specialists and can serve as the input to tools that generate prototypes and monitors.