SRS Documents

Document 1. ProcessImpact SRS template

http://www.processimpact.com/process_assets/srs_template.doc

(HTML version from Google: http://209.85.135.132/search?q=cache:8fmA-O1OsYcJ:www.processimpact.com/process_assets/srs_template.doc+software+requirements+specification&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=fi)

Document 2. ACIS SRS (complete document)

http://acis.mit.edu/acis/sreq/sreq.book.html

Structure

All documents are structured clearly and hierarchically.

The IEEE and ACIS documents have more structural levels than the ProcessImpact template. This may be due to their size.

Contents

The three documents are of different kinds: the IEEE one gives guidelines for requirements specification,

ProcessImpact gives a template for such a specification, and ACIS has a full specification document for a complicated system.

The IEEE guidelines has the richest structure, featuring an abstract, keywords, an introduction, table of contents and appendices, in addition to the main text.

It also includes a template. The ACIS document generally follows this template (specifically, the variant in A.5), although it leaves out or adds some sections.

The

ProcessImpact template is organized quite differently.

The template does not give clear, concrete descriptions of what should be written, nor a rationale for why it is needed. However,

it has sections relating to the evolution of the document: the Revision History and Issues List sections. (IEEE mentions a “formal change process” and suggests an audit of changes should be provided, but does not include this in its template.)

The ACIS document has only the requirements themselves. The requirements are not ranked for importance/stability, but the ones that are not essential are listed in an appendix. The requirements I have looked at are unambiguous, verifiable, modifiable and traceable as per IEEE guidelines. (Checking if they are correct, complete or consistent would require analyzing the whole document, which I did not do.)

Style

The IEEE and ACIS are written in scientific style, which reinforces the fact that they are well thought-out and formalized. The

ProcessImpact template is written in a more general language, in the imperative mood.