A Case Study of Requirements Ambiguities and Goal-oriented Focused Requirements Specification

Abstract

This paper conducted a case study in a simulation control software system. In the case study, we analyzed defects that required significant correction effort. The defects were ambiguity defects injected by misunderstandings and inconsistencies among stakeholders during interpreting requirements and specifying design documents. The ambiguities of the specifications are found in the definitions of distance, time (time zone), and calculation accuracy. These cause non-conformance in the implementations and errors in the control simulation execution results. Based on the analysis, as a low-effort defect prevention approach, we propose clearly defining the units to avoid such ambiguities and estimated the expected effort reduction by the definitions in the target control simulation software development.