IEEE WG 12 Software                                                                                   Meeting 10

                                                                                                                        May 31, 2001

 

Draft Meeting Minutes

 

The tenth meeting of the working group was held on May 16 and 17, 2001 at the LTK offices in Ambler, PA.

 

Participants

 

A listing of participants is attached (WG12 Roster.xls). Eight members attended the meeting.

 

Agenda

 

The agenda was discussed and agreement reached.  (wg12agn10.doc)

 

Minutes

 

No action was taken to approve the meeting minutes from meeting 09 as the minutes were not distributed in time for a through review.

 

Assignment Reports

 

1.      Software Requirements Traceability Matrix                 Lori Karr

A document (attached) was distributed and reviewed by the group.  The following comments and direction were established.

 

Every requirement in the SRS shall appear in the SRTM.

Each requirement shall have a unique identifier.

The project management plan shall how requirements are managed and controlled including the identifier structure.

The matrix shall include the technical requirements

 

SRTM column changes are as follows:

Column 1 &2 are combined Source Document Reference.  Specific reference within the source document shall be provided.

Column 3 heading shall be changed to Source Requirement Description.  This description

Column 4 change heading shall be “SRS/IRS Identifier”.

Column 5 change heading shall be “SDD/IDD/DB/DD Identifier”.

Column 6 change heading shall be “Code Identifier”.

Column 4, 5 and 6 shall be a unique identifier.

 

A sample SRTM was presented by Bombardier and provided as a separate document.

 

Show different views of the SRTM and make a recommendation of the position to be used in the within the standard.  Participants are L. Karr, F. Ouellette and P. Jamieson. Tentative date: June 26th

 

Updated SRTM to be prepared for next meeting. - L. Karr

 

2.      Software Configuration Management Plan                  John Corvin

A document (attached) was distributed and reviewed by the group.  The following comments and direction were established.

 

IEEE 12207.1 specifies section 5.7 SCM Cost shall be included.  Consideration needs to be given to replacing cost with resource allocation.

 

Review 12207 and update the SCMP requirements for the next meeting. - J. Corvin

 

3.      Software Project Management Plan                                         Shanti Morar

A document (attached) was distributed and reviewed by the group.  The following comments and direction were established.

 

Content diagram and functional elements shall appear in section 1.1.1 purpose, scope and objectives.

Project Deliverables (section 1.1.3) shall include all work products.  Work products that are deliverable to the acquirer shall be clearly identified.  The title shall be changed to “Project Work Products”.

Reference documents shall be identified but the revision level is not required.  A change control process shall be addressed in the SCMP.

 

Review 12207 and update the SPMP requirements for the next meeting. – S. Morar

 

4.      General Comments

Each section straw man including revision level to be posted on the website for review and comment. - P. Jamieson

 

The question arose of having our standard specify that the planning documents should be separate (vs integrated in one document or combined in some way).  The documents under consideration are

the SQAP, SCMP, SPMP, and SVVP.  Some reasons for keeping them separate were discussed.  These are as follows:

a) Audiences - the audiences of each plan may be slightly different.

b) Opportunities for reuse.  In practice, once one of these documents is created, it is likely that, from project to project, the basic information will remain the same, with only project specific information changing.

c) Consistency - one of the aims of creating this standard is to encourage consistency in documentation from different suppliers, and consistency in the expectations of the customer.

d) Two principles from software design - when designing a code module, the preference is for high cohesion and well defined coupling.  For documents, cohesion carries the idea that the document should focus on one specific area (e.g. SQA or SCM), and be internally cohesive and consistent.  Coupling between documents should be limited to pointers from one document to the other, and not necessarily repeating the same information in two documents.

 

Action Item Review                                                                           Paul Jamieson

 

Action items were assigned and reviewed. (wg12ail10.doc)

 

Next Meeting

 

The next working group meeting will be on August 14 & 15, 2001 at location to be determined (East Coast).

 

Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned on May 17 at 2:30 PM

 

Attachments

 

The following information distributed at the meeting appears on the following pages:

 

Software Requirements Traceability Matrix (SRTM) Outline

Software Configuration Management Plan (SCMP) Outline

Software Project Management Plan (SPDP) Outline

 


Software Requirements Traceability Matrix

 

Definition of a Requirement

 

As per IEEE Std 610.12-1990, A requirement is defined as a condition or capability that must be met or possessed by a system or system component to satisfy a contract, standard, specification, or other formally imposed documents.  Desirable qualities of requirements include the following:

 

·         Correct – Each requirement should be stated without error

·         Complete – The set of requirements are considered to be complete when if all possible states, state changes, inputs, products and constraints are described by some requirement.

·         Consistent – There should be no conflicting or ambiguous requirements

·         Realistic – can the requirement actually be implemented

·         Verifiable – A test must be able to be written that demonstrates that the requirement has been met

·         Traceable – Each system function must be traced to a set of requirements that mandates it.

 

System requirements are obtained from any or all of the following customer artifacts:

 

·         Statement of Work (SOW)

·         Change Requests

·         Customer Meeting Minutes

·         Operations Requirements Documents (ORD)

·         Proposal/Request For Proposal (RFP)

 

During System Requirements Analysis and System Architectural Design the system level requirements are analyzed. The system requirements are then documented in the System/Subsystem Requirements Specification (SSS).  The SSS:

 

·         Contains the System Level Requirements

·         Defines the overview of the system’s behavior

·         Includes the requirements for hardware, software, program management, operators and networks, etc.

 

Also during this timeframe, the system analyst creates a Requirements Traceability Matrix (RTM) that allocates all requirements into categories such as the following: hardware, software, documentation, quality assurance, testing, project management, etc.


 

Definition of the SRTM

 

The Software Requirements Traceability Matrix (SRTM) is derived from the Requirements Traceability Matrix, which is generated during System Requirements Analysis and System Architectural Design.  Only those requirements, which have been allocated to software will be carried through to the SRTM. The SRTM shall provide mapping back to the system level requirements defined in System/Subsystem Requirements Specification (SSS) or in the Contract Documents if an SSS was not created.  The SRTM shall provide mapping forwards to the SRS/IRS, SDD/IDD/DBDD, and Software Test Procedures.

 

Software Requirement Number

SSS Section or Contract Document(s) (backward reference)

Software Requirement Text

SRS/IRS Ref.

(forward reference)

SDD/IDD/DBDD Ref. (forward reference).

Code Ref.

(forward reference)

Software Test Procedure

Other Ref/

Comments

Unique number that was assigned to the software requirement during System Requirements Analysis and System Architectural Design.  Is derived from the Technical Specification

The document name (SSS or Contract Document) and section within the document in which this software requirement is addressed

 

 

Specific software requirement text from the SSS or Contract Document

The document name (SRS/IRS) and section within the document in which this software requirement is addressed

The document name (SDD/IDD/DBDD) and the design entity(ies) that implement this software requirement

The module or object name that implements this software requirement

The Software Validation Test Procedure in which this software requirement is tested.

 

References to other documents or free-form comments

 


DEFINITION OF EACH COLUMN:

 

Software Requirement Number:

 

Each software requirement shall be uniquely numbered. The numbering system shall consist of a prefix that that denotes the source document from which this requirement was derived (e.g. SOW, ORD, RFP), followed by a ‘-‘ and a suffix which denotes the section within the source document from which this requirement was derived (e.g. 1.01, 4.2). If there are multiple requirements identified within a section, then each requirement number shall be uniquely identified with an additional suffix of ‘-‘ followed by a sequential number starting at 1. The sequential number will restart at 1, within each section.  The following are examples:

 

SOW-1.01-1

SOW-1.01-2

SOW-1.01-3

SOW-1.02-1

SOW-1.02-2

 

SSS Section or Contract Document section

 

This column shall contain a backward reference to appropriate system level documentation and the section from which this requirement was derived.  It is assumed that the supplier has created an SSS and that the software requirements have been allocated via the RTM. 

 

In the instance that the supplier has not created an SSS or equivalent system level documentation, then this column shall map back to the Contract Document (SOW, ORD, RFP) from which this requirement was derived.

 

The reference to the SSS section number shall correspond to the lowest level of detail defined within the source document Table of Contents. (can this or should this be defined further???)

 

Software Requirement Text:

 

This column shall contain the software requirement text, which has been extracted from the source document. During the Software Requirements Analysis activity the software analyst shall enter each software requirement into the RTM.  Each software requirement shall possess the qualities identified in the “Definition of a Requirement” section within this document. When deciding whether to break a statement into individual requirements, the analyst should consider how the requirement would be tested.  If the requirement will be tested by a single test procedure, then the requirement probably does not need to be broken down further.  If the requirement will be tested by multiple test procedures, then the requirement should be broken down into multiple requirements. It is important to follow a consistent and documented methodology for breaking down requirements.

 

 

SRS/IRS Ref.

 

This column shall contain a forward reference to the document name (SRS/IRS) and section within the document in which this software requirement is addressed.

All software requirements must be mapped to one or more section(s). The reference to the SRS/IRS section number shall correspond to the lowest level of detail defined within the SRS/IRS Table of Contents. (can this or should this be defined further??? Also, will the SRS contain references to the requirement number within the SRS text?) 

 

SDD/IDD/DBDD Ref.

 

The software supplier may elect to create an IDD and/or DBDD in addition to the SDD.  According to IEEE Std 1016, “In a complete SDD, each requirement must be traceable to one or more design entities...  Entities can exist as a system, subsystems, data stores, modules, programs and processes.”  This column shall contain a forward reference to the document name (SDD/IDD/DBDD) and one or more design entity(ies). The reference should denote the section number of the design entity in which the software requirement is addressed.

 

The Visio Diagram shows that we are to provide mapping to the Software Architectural Design and the Software Detailed Design.  I am assuming that the mapping will not change between these 2 design documents, if we continue to map to the design entity level.  The information described for each design entity will change among the two documents, but the mapping will not.

 

Code Ref.

 

This column shall contain a forward reference to the module name or object name that implements this software requirement. (Verify with the team whether we want to map to code).

 

Software Test Procedure

 

(Need to verify with the team to what level we want to what level we want to map the tests. Unit, Integration, Validation, Qualification).

 

This column will provide a forward reference to the Software Validation Test Procedure identification number in which this software requirement will be tested.

 

Other Ref/Comments

 

This column will provide references to other documents or free-form comments as necessary.

 

 

REPORTS

 

This section will address reports that are required to be generated as output from the SRTM.

 


Software Configuration Management Plan

 

Standards Investigation

Consider:

  1. IEEE Std 828-1998, IEEE Standard for Software Configuration Management Plans
  2. IEEE Std 1042-1987, (Reaff 1993) IEEE Guide to Software Configuration Management
  3. IEEE/EIA 12207.0-1996 IEEE/EIA Standard Industry Implementation of International Standard ISO/IEC 12207:1995 (ISO/IEC 12207) Standard for Information Technology—Software life cycle processes
  4. IEEE/EIA 12207.1-1997 IEEE/EIA Guide Industry Implementation of International Standard ISO/IEC 12207 : 1995 (ISO/IEC 12207) Standard for Information Technology—Software life cycle processes—Life cycle data
  5. J-STD-016-1995, 30 September 1995, Trial-Use Standard, Standard for Information Technology Software Life Cycle Processes Software Development Acquirer-Supplier Agreement

 

IEEE 828 specifies the following:

SCM planning information may be presented in any format, sequence, or location that is meaningful to the intended users of the Plan with the following restrictions:

a)  A document with the title “Software Configuration Management Plan” shall exist either in stand-alone form or embedded in another project document.  Suggest Rail Transit require a separate SCMP.

b) This document shall contain all SCM planning information either by inclusion or by reference to other locations, such as other documents or automated systems.

c) A format for this document shall be defined.

 

The writer of the Plan shall use the sequence of sections specified in 828 Table 1 unless a different format has been defined in the Introduction of the Plan.  Suggest we require sections as defined in Table 1.

 

As such, the following sections are proposed:

 

Section

SCMP Content List

Applicable to Railway Software Standards

Amendments For

Railway Software Standards

Cover

Date of issue and document status

Mandatory

12207.1-1997

Inside Cover

SCMP Change History

Mandatory

12207.1-1997

1.0

INTRODUCTION

Mandatory

 

1.1

Purpose

Mandatory

 

1.2

Scope

Mandatory

 

1.2.1

Software items covered

Mandatory

 

1.2.1.1

Lowest Entity Covered

Recommended

 

1.2.1.2

Other Entities Covered (e.g. Test or Support S/W)

Recommended

 

1.2.2

SCM Relationships to Other CM

Mandatory

 

1.2.3

Life Cycle

Mandatory

 

1.2.4

Specific Limitations and Constraints

Recommended

 

1.3

Assumptions

Mandatory

 

1.3.1

Internal

Recommended

 

1.3.2

Tools

Recommended

 

1.3.3

Customer Participation

Recommended

 

1.4

Acronyms and definitions

Mandatory

 

1.4.1

Acronyms

Mandatory

 

1.4.2

Definitions

Mandatory

 

1.5

References

Mandatory

 

2.0

SCM MANAGEMENT

Mandatory

 

2.1

Organization

Mandatory

 

2.2

SCM Responsibilities

Mandatory

 

2.2.1

SCM Roles

Mandatory

 

2.2.1.1

Group 1 (e.g., SCCB)

Mandatory

 

2.2.1.1.1

Purpose and objectives

Mandatory

 

2.2.1.1.2

Membership and affiliations

Mandatory

 

2.2.1.1.3

Period of effectivity

Mandatory

 

2.2.1.1.4

Scope of authority

Mandatory

 

2.2.1.1.5

Operational procedures.

Mandatory

 

2.2.1.2

Group 2 (e.g., Quality Assurance)

Recommended

 

2.2.1.2.x

As above