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Requirements Defect Density Reduction Using Mentoring to Supplement Training

Authors:
John Terzakis

Keywords: requirements specification; requirements defects; requirements defect density; training; mentoring

Abstract:
Requirements authors typically receive little formal university training in writing requirements. Yet, they are expected to write requirements that will become the foundation for all future product development. Defects introduced during the requirements phase of a project impact multiple downstream work products and, ultimately, product defect and quality levels. Many companies, including Intel Corporation, have recognized this skills gap and have created requirements training classes to address this issue. While effective in providing the fundamentals of good requirements writing, much of this knowledge can be misapplied or lost without proper mentoring from a requirements Subject Matter Expert (SME). Our experience over the last decade at Intel has found that adding SME peer mentoring improves both the rate and depth of proper application of the training, and improves requirements defect density more than training alone. This paper will present data from a case study demonstrating the issues with training alone and the benefits of combining training with SME mentoring in order to achieve a greater than 75% reduction in requirements defect density.

Pages: 113 to 114

Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2012

Publication date: June 24, 2012

Published in: conference

ISSN: 2308-4529

ISBN: 978-1-61208-202-8

Location: Venice, Italy

Dates: from June 24, 2012 to June 29, 2012