Homework 3: Requirements, Part 1

1 Talking to the Customer (20 points)
Section 7.3.4 in Pressman discusses context-free questions to ask your customer. Come up with three more such questions.

2 Feasibility (20 points)
It can occur that a customer gives you requirements that are not feasible, i.e., they cannot possibly be solved. Give five examples of infeasible requirements, and for each, explain why you think that it is infeasible.

3 Case Study, Part 1 (60 points)
VideoLan is a free program for playing video and audio files. In this case study, you will reverse engineer its requirements. To do so, you should download and run the program, and look at the Web site and the documentation.

3.1 Give a general overview of what VideoLan does. Describe what the program is good for, and what features it has. Write about 200 words.

3.2 Identify, as completely as possible, the stakeholders of this product.

3.3 Do a market analysis. List five important competing products, and for each, name its biggest strength, and give a brief (one sentence) description. Define the market niche that VideoLan occupies: what are its distinguishing features, and why do some customers prefer it over the competing products?

3.4 Identify five features that VideoLan does not yet have, but that might be beneficial for the product. Describe each feature, and explain how it would make the product more competitive.