Software Engineering Requirements Engineering 2 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: Which requirements elicitation method involves creating a working model of the system to gather user feedback?
- Interviews
- Document analysis
- Prototyping (Correct answer)
- Brainstorming
Correct answer: Prototyping
Prototyping creates a preliminary working version of the system to help users visualize, evaluate, and refine their requirements.
Question 2: In a requirements document, what is the distinction between 'shall' and 'should'?
- 'Shall' indicates optional features while 'should' indicates mandatory ones
- 'Shall' indicates a mandatory requirement while 'should' indicates a desirable but optional one (Correct answer)
- Both terms are interchangeable in requirements documentation
- 'Shall' applies to functional requirements and 'should' to non-functional ones
Correct answer: 'Shall' indicates a mandatory requirement while 'should' indicates a desirable but optional one
In requirements documentation, 'shall' denotes a mandatory requirement while 'should' denotes something desirable but not strictly required.
Question 3: What is a 'stakeholder' in the context of requirements engineering?
- An investor who provides funding for the project
- The lead developer responsible for implementing requirements
- Any person or organization with an interest in or affected by the system (Correct answer)
- The project manager who approves requirements documents
Correct answer: Any person or organization with an interest in or affected by the system
A stakeholder is any person, group, or organization that has an interest in the system or is affected by its development, deployment, or operation.
Question 4: The MoSCoW method is used in requirements engineering to:
- Document software architecture decisions
- Estimate software development effort in story points
- Prioritize requirements into Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have (Correct answer)
- Manage version control for requirements documents
Correct answer: Prioritize requirements into Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have
MoSCoW is a prioritization technique that categorizes requirements into Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have (this time).
Question 5: What is 'requirements volatility'?
- The risk that requirements will cause system instability
- The tendency of requirements to change during the project lifecycle (Correct answer)
- The difficulty level of implementing specific requirements
- The degree to which requirements conflict with each other
Correct answer: The tendency of requirements to change during the project lifecycle
Requirements volatility refers to how frequently requirements change during the project, which significantly impacts planning, design, and budget decisions.
Question 6: What is a 'system boundary' in requirements engineering?
- The maximum number of concurrent users a system can support
- The line separating what the system does from what external actors do (Correct answer)
- The physical hardware limits of the deployment environment
- The maximum data storage capacity required by the system
Correct answer: The line separating what the system does from what external actors do
The system boundary defines what is inside the system (its responsibilities) versus what exists outside it (external actors, interfaces, and systems).
Question 7: Which diagram type is most commonly used to visualize the system boundary and interactions between actors and the system?
- Class diagram
- Sequence diagram
- Use case diagram (Correct answer)
- Entity-relationship diagram
Correct answer: Use case diagram
A use case diagram shows the system boundary as a box, with actors outside it and use cases inside, illustrating all interactions at a high level.
Which requirements elicitation method involves creating a working model of the system to gather user feedback?