Combining Scenario-based Requirements with Static Verification and Dynamic Testing

Abstract. Two important prerequisites for achieving high quality softwareare solid requirements engineering and systematic testing. Scenarios and usecases are gaining increased attention in requirements engineering, as meansfor eliciting, documenting and validating requirements. Scenarios may alsobe a basis for testing. This paper identifies a number of possibilities of com-bining scenario-based requirements engineering with systematic approachesfor software verification and validation. It presents outlines of strategies forutilizing scenarios created during requirements engineering as input to staticverification and dynamic testing. Special attention is given to the opportunityof (1) using prioritized scenarios for guiding inspections, (2) combining sce-narios with reliability testing, and (3) scenario elicitation through strategiescommon in testing. Several issues of further research are identified. 1. Introduction There is a general consensus on the importance of good RequirementsEngineering (RE) for achieving high quality software. It is unlikely thatpoorly understood requirements yield a software system that fits its pur-poses. Another important process component for ensuring high qualitysoftware is Verification and Validation (V&V). This paper presentsmotives for and ideas behind the use of scenarios as a common denomina-tor for both RE and V&V. The main contribution of the paper is a numberof proposals on how scenarios from RE can be combined with differentareas of V&V.Scenarios and use cases