| Many programs engineer inadequate top level system requirements resulting in increased costs, delayed schedule, large amounts of rework, and dissatisfied stakeholders. Ambiguous and incomplete performance requirements are the cause of many projects in DoD failing or delivering unsatisfactory results to the customer.;The objective is to engineer a methodology for engineering system requirements into a minimal set of independent requirements that are complete, necessary, unambiguous, and verifiable. A number of sources have defined several characteristics of a good requirement, but none define how to measure all of the characteristics or how to determine if the set of requirements is complete. This research focuses on developing a methodology for engineering requirements to improve the system development effort. The key elements of this methodology are an engineering requirements process, a prioritization model, Requirements Maturity Level model, requirements engineering framework, and trade-off analysis model. These elements are needed to address the gaps identified during the literature review. The engineering requirements process includes high level steps to be performed and a template that can serve as a checklist. The prioritization model is a multi-dimensional mathematical model used to prioritize the capabilities and requirements. The priority of requirements is determined from the mission criticality of the capability it traces to and the effort to correct the requirement later in the life-cycle if it is not implemented correctly. The Requirement Maturity Levels (RML) model includes a means to measure the maturity of a requirement based on ten characteristics. Unlike Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), RMLs will be based on an interval scale that represents relative effort for achieving each of the levels. The system RML for the requirement specification is derived from the Requirement Maturity Level and priority of each requirement. The methodology also includes a Systems Requirements Engineering Framework which provides rules, guidance, and a meta-model to be used for determining if a requirement qualifies for a Requirements Maturity Level.;The cost to fix the consequences of the unsatisfactory requirements increases dramatically over time and many faults are introduced early in the life-cycle and not corrected until much later in the life-cycle when it is more expensive to do so. Investing in systems requirements engineering may have an enormous payoff by reducing schedule and cost overruns. |
