Requirements reusability is the potential of requirements to be used more than once in different contexts. Requirements that are well written and meet all necessary conditions for reuse can save time and money on future projects. However, it can be difficult to create reusable requirements without sacrificing quality or specificity. In this article, we’ll discuss what requirements reusability is, the benefits and risks of reuse, and some approaches you can take to increase the likelihood of successful reuse.
What is Requirements Reusability?
Requirements reusability is the potential of requirements to be used more than once in different contexts. Requirements that are well written and meet all necessary conditions for reuse can save time and money on future projects. However, it can be difficult to create reusable requirements without sacrificing quality or specificity.
In order to be reused, a requirement must meet certain conditions:
- The requirement must be general enough to apply to multiple situations while still being specific enough to provide value.
- The requirement must be well written so that it is clear and concise.
- The requirement must be stable, meaning it is unlikely to change over time.
If a requirement meets these conditions, it can be considered for reuse on future projects. However, even if a requirement meets all of the necessary conditions, it may not be reused if it is not relevant to the new project.
Types of Reusabilities:
There are broadly three types of reusing requirements.
- By Reference: In this type, the requirement is not changed but just referred to the new project. An example of this could be a government regulation that your project must adhere to.
- By Value: In this type, the requirement is analyzed and then rewritten to fit the context of the new project. An example of this would be a requirement for a login system that is reused for a different project with some modifications.
- By Copy: In this case, the requirement is used as it is without any changes. This is generally not recommended as it can lead to inconsistencies between projects.
Benefits of Requirements Reusability
There are several benefits of requirements reuse:
- Increased productivity: Reusing requirements can save time and effort by avoiding the need to create new requirements from scratch. This is especially true for large organizations with many projects.
- Improved quality: Requirements that are reused have often been through multiple rounds of review and revision. This can lead to higher quality requirements overall.
- Greater consistency: When related projects reuse requirements, there is greater consistency between the projects. This can make it easier for users to understand and use the systems.
Risks of Requirements Reusability:
There are also some risks associated with requirements reuse:
- Requirements may not be applicable: As mentioned above, just because a requirement meets the necessary conditions for reuse does not mean it will be relevant to the new project. If requirements are not carefully reviewed for applicability, they may introduce errors or inconsistencies.
- Requirements may need to be modified: Even if a requirement is applicable to the new project, it may need to be modified to fit the specific context. This can introduce errors and lead to increased complexity.
- Requirements may become outdated: Over time, requirements that are reused may become outdated as the system changes. This can lead to inconsistency and confusion.
Approaches for Maximizing Requirements Reusability:
There are several approaches an organization can take to maximize the reuse potential of its requirements:
- Use a Requirements Management tool: A Requirements Management tool can help you store and organize requirements so that they are easily accessible for reuse.
- Create a Requirements Reuse Library: A Requirements Reuse Library is a collection of reusable requirements that can be accessed by multiple projects. This can make it easier to find and reuse relevant requirements.
- Implement a Requirements Traceability System: A Requirements Traceability system ensures that all requirements are traceable back to their source. This makes it easier to determine which requirements are being used on which projects and makes it less likely that requirements will become outdated.
By taking these steps, an organization can increase the likelihood of successful requirements reuse and improve the overall quality of its requirements.
Requirements reuse is a powerful tool that can save time and effort on future projects. However, it is important to carefully consider the risks and benefits before implementing a reuse strategy.
How to Reuse Requirements Effectively:
There are a few methods for implementing requirements reusability.
- Versions – Requirements can be versioned so that each project gets its own copy of the requirement. The disadvantage of this approach is that it can lead to inconsistencies between projects. A version number is used to identify a particular moment in the history of an item. Not all modifications to an object are significant, and a new version is not required for every such event. For example, assigning a requirement from Nigel to Julia wouldn’t necessitate the creation of a specific version identifier. The change is recorded in the item’s history, but no new version is created.
- Baselines – Requirements can be baselined so that each project has a specific version of the requirement. A baseline is said to be a snapshot of the work item at a specific point in the development cycle. This ensures consistency between projects but can be difficult to maintain.
- Templates – Requirements can be written as templates that can be filled in with project-specific information. This approach is flexible and easy to maintain, but it may not provide the level of detail required for some projects.
Which method you choose will depend on your organization’s needs and preferences.
Reusing requirements is a powerful tool that can save time and effort on future projects. However, it is important to carefully consider the risks and benefits before implementing a reuse strategy. By taking these steps, you can ensure that your requirements are reusable and of high quality. This will save time and effort on future projects and improve the overall quality of your requirements.
Tips for Reusing Requirements:
When reused requirements are not managed properly, they can introduce errors and inconsistencies into a project. To avoid these problems, it is important to follow some best practices for requirements reuse:
- Define what should be reused: Requirements should only be reused if they meet the necessary conditions for applicability and relevance.
- Review requirements for applicability: Requirements should be reviewed to ensure that they are applicable to the new project.
- Determine what needs to be changed: If a requirement needs to be changed to fit the new context, this should be done carefully to avoid introducing errors.
- Update requirements as needed: Requirements that are reused should be updated as needed to keep them accurate and up-to-date.
By following these best practices, organizations can effectively reuse requirements and improve the quality of their Requirements Management processes.
Requirements Management Tools:
Requirements reusability is the process of reusing the requirements that have already been used before in previous projects. This is majorly used by the requirements engineering team to ensure the highest productivity and consistency throughout the project. Visure keeps a silo of requirements that are salvageable in other future projects. With the Requirements Reusability feature, your process for optimizing resources and managing change across projects gets simplified.
Visure Requirements ALM Platform supports the different reuse modes allowing you to easily reuse requirement components across multiple projects and deal with all the notifications and propagation of updates throughout the projects.
- Copy and Paste: Most widely used technique. There are multiple variants of this method, such as copying and pasting in read-only mode.
- Copy and Link: An advanced evolution of the copy and paste is to be able to keep a reference from the pasted requirement to the original one. This is a much more powerful option, as it will allow us to create a branch (a diverging version with the same unique identifier) from the original requirement, but still receive updates if the original requirement is modified. This will allow your team to keep working on our own branch, or merge with the original one at any point in time. This is an extremely efficient way of performing a change and populating it to all the ongoing projects in the company and is especially useful in dealing with product variants and branches.
- Link: This mode allows to display of a representation of a set of requirements from another project in read-only mode. Any changes made to the original requirements are automatically populated to the rest of the projects reusing them. This mode is especially useful when dealing with standards and norms, in which projects need not modify them, but need to make sure they keep up to date.
- Share: This mode allows projects to share the ownership of a set of requirements, being requirements editable and automatically available to all the projects at the same time.
Conclusion:
Reusing requirements can be a powerful tool for increasing software productivity. However, it is important to carefully consider the risks and benefits before implementing a reuse strategy. By taking some simple steps to ensure that requirements are well-managed and up-to-date, organizations can maximize the benefits of reuse while minimizing the risks.
By reusing requirements you can avoid duplication of effort, ensure consistency and completeness across projects, and enable earlier defect detection. In this article, we have introduced the concept of requirements reuse, discussed the benefits thereof, and provided an overview of approaches to achieve it. We also showcased the Visure Requirements ALM Platform as a state-of-the-art tool for achieving efficient and effective requirements reuse. If you would like to experience these benefits for yourself, request a free 30-day trial at Visure Requirements ALM Platform today.
