When it comes to managing requirements, complexity is the new normal. Requirements documents now routinely exceed 100 pages and can change multiple times. But the problem isn’t the requirements document itself — the problem is continuing to rely on a document to manage your requirements in the first place. We have compiled the five biggest

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As projects grow in complexity, so does the challenge of ensuring that everyone at each touch-point understands the scope and stay in sync with the ever-evolving requirements. How can you manage projects more effectively when scope changes? This paper discusses how the combination of collaboration, traceability, test coverage and change management can all help teams

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As a design assurance guideline for airborne electronic hardware, DO-254 is considered by many to be a simple duplicate of DO-178, its avionics software sibling. While similarities abound, so do their many differences. And truly, DO-254 is the benefactor, or bane, of avionics projects the world over. But is DO-254 unduly expensive? Does it add

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Practice of any kind usually involves a modicum of coaching, self-help and repetition. In avionics development, however, there is little time or space for practice, because everything counts. And the results have little margin for error when schedules, budgets and particularly safety are all on the line. How then can “practice” be reconciled with “avionics

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It’s hard to visualize how a system will function just by reading the requirements specification. Designing tests based on requirements will help make the expected system behaviors more tangible to all the project participants. And the simple act of designing tests often reveals many problems with the requirements long before you execute the tests on

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Designing a reliable test strategy requires broad, strategic thinking. The goal of test-based verification is to ensure you release a best-quality system that meets customer expectations. But without proper planning and management, testing can be one of the most complicated and expensive phases of the development life cycle. Maintaining test traceability to specific objectives is

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Embedded systems pose particular design and development challenges. An overlooked software or system requirement could lead to painful hardware redesign late in the process. Beyond functionality, your team must specify, design and build the product to protect against serious safety, security, reliability and performance risks. Yet the imperative to deliver the right product quickly still

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What do golf and automotive software have in common? To the novice, seemingly nothing. However, the commonalities are more profound than expected. Consider common traits of golf and ISO 26262 as experienced by this author: • Both seem easy to start up, but complexities befuddle beginners • Both seem cheap to engage in initially, but

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Compliance standards, especially those that involve relatively new functional safety elements, will likely add additional requirements to the development process. But ISO 26262, in particular, will add more than new requirements to the product life cycle for automotive hardware-software systems. This Functional Safety standard will act as a framework impacting integrated requirements traceability, risk management,

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For medical device manufacturers, new realities present favorable circumstances and worrisome challenges. For example, medical devices are now more integrated into inpatient, outpatient and home care. And technological advances continue to evolve medical device design and manufacturing. But as modern health reform increases patient connectivity, it also increases media scrutiny, leaving manufacturers with precious little

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