Table Of ContentAbout the Authors
Klaus Pohl holds a full professorship for Software Systems Engineering at the Institute for Computer
Science and Business Information Systems (ICB) at University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. He was the
scientific funding director of Lero, the Irish Software Engineering Research Centre. Currently he is the
acting director of paluno—The Ruhr Institute for Software Technology—at the University of Duisburg-
Essen. He received his Ph.D. and his habilitation in computer science from RWTH Aachen, Germany.
Klaus is (co-)author of more than 250 peer-reviewed publications and several text books. He served as
Program and General Chair for many international and national conferences including the 35th ACM/IEEE
Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2013). As consultant, assessor, and expert he supports small
and multi-national companies, research institutes, and public funded research programs. Klaus is co-founder
of the IREB e.V. (International Requirements Engineering Board). You can find more information on
https://sse.uni-due.de.
Chris Rupp—SOPHIST-in-chief (formally: founder and executive partner of the SOPHIST GmbH), chief
consultant, coach and trainer. Looking back over 25 years of professional experience, a lot has come up: a
company . . . 6 books . . . 55 employees . . . countless articles and presentations . . . and a whole lot of
experience. My passion for project consultation might account for the fact that, until now, I do not “only”
manage, but I am still directly involved in projects and close to customers. What drives me is the vision to
implement good ideas so that developers, contractual partners and users—both direct and indirect—face an
intelligent, sophisticated and beneficial product. In doing so, I work with a range of methods and
approaches in agile and non-agile environments.
In order to standardize qualification for requirements engineers / business analysts, I founded the IREB e.V.
(International Requirements Engineering Board). You can find further information on www.sophist.de.
Klaus Pohl · Chris Rupp
Requirements
Engineering
Fundamentals
A Study Guide for the Certified Professional
for Requirements Engineering Exam
Foundation Level – IREB compliant
2nd Edition
Klaus Pohl (
005.1076--dc23
2015009245
Many of the designations in this book used by manufacturers and sellers to distinguish their products are
claimed as trademarks of their respective companies. Where those designations appear in this book, and
Rocky Nook was aware of a trademark claim, the designations have been printed in caps or initial caps.
They are used in editorial fashion only and for the benefit of such companies, they are not intended to
convey endorsement or other affiliation with this book.
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form,
electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval
system, without written permission of the copyright owner. While reasonable care has been exercised in the
preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for
damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Foreword
Dear reader,
With Requirements Engineering Fundamentals, you are holding the official text
book of the Certified Professional for Requirements Engineering (CPRE) –
Foundation Level certification in your hands.
The 2nd edition of this book is aligned with the curriculum (version 2.2) of
the International Requirements Engineering Board e.V. (IREB) and the IREB
glossary. In addition, some minor defects of the 1st edition have been corrected.
A short introduction to the IREB and the certification process can be found in the
previous section “The Certified Professional for Requirements Engineering
(CPRE) Exam”.
The aim of this book is to aid you in your preparation for the certification
examination of the Certified Professional for Requirements Engineering. The
book is suited for your individual preparation for the examination as well as for
companion literature to training courses offered by training providers.
In addition to the book, you should consider the information about the
preparation for the certification examination published on the IREB website
(http://www.ireb.org/en). That additional information reflects updates of the
curriculum (after version 2.2) and potentially amends this book with respect to
some areas of interest. Errata to this book are published on the IREB website.
Our decision to author this book collaboratively was not unjustified. The
book at hand is meant to integrate long-lasting practical experiences with
educational and research knowledge concerning the topic of requirements
engineering, in particular for the Foundation Level of the Certified Professional
for Requirements Engineering. As a consequence, this book is based on the two
best-selling books in the German language about requirements engineering by
the two main authors:
Klaus Pohl: Requirements Engineering – Grundlagen, Prinzipien,
Techniken. Published at dpunkt.verlag, Heidelberg, 2008. This book was
written from a perspective of research and education and offers a
structured discussion of the fundamentals, principles, and techniques of
requirements engineering. (Also available in English: Requirements
Engineering – Fundamentals, Principles, and Techniques. Springer, New
York, 2010)
Chris Rupp: Requirements-Engineering und -Management – Aus der
Praxis von klassisch bis agil. Published at Hanser Fachbuchverlag,
Munich, 2014. This book contains application-oriented knowledge about
requirements engineering, which supports the requirements engineer in his
or her daily practice. (Individual chapters also available in English on the
SOPHIST website: http://www.sophist.de)
We have chosen not to reference the two books listed above in the individual
chapters of this book. You can find detailed additional information on the topics
of this book in both of the books mentioned above.
This book was made possible with the help of a number of people. Our
special thanks go to Dirk Schüpferling and Thorsten Weyer for their
contributions to this book and their outstanding commitment, without which this
book would not have been possible. Many reviews and consistent support by
other board members increased the quality of this book. We particularly thank all
board members of the IREB for their active support. In addition, Urte Pautz of
the Siemens AG; Christian Pikalek and Rainer Joppich of the SOPHIST GmbH
(www.sophist.de); and Dr. Kim Lauenroth and Nelufar Ulfat-Bunyadi from
“paluno – The Ruhr Institute for Software Technology” at the University of
Duisburg-Essen (www.paluno.de) have contributed to individual sections of the
book. Furthermore, we want to thank Thorsten Weyer and Bastian Tenbergen
(paluno) as well as Marta Tayeh (SOPHIST GmbH) for their commitment
towards translating this book from German into English. Thanks also to Philipp
Schmidt and Dirk Schüpferling for their support in aligning this book to the
IREB syllabus version 2.2.
We also want to thank Christa Preisendanz, Dr. Michael Barabas, and Judy
Flynn for their support in publishing this book.
Klaus Pohl and Chris Rupp
Essen and Nuremberg, February 2015
With Contributions from
Karol Frühauf
INFOGEM AG, SAQ
Karol Frühauf studied in Bratislava and at RWTH Aachen, gaining his degree in computer engineering in
1975. He then spent 12 years at Brown, Boveri & Cie working as a programmer, head of quality and finally
as a manager in network control technology. In 1987, Frühauf founded INFOGEM AG with Helmut
Sandmayr, and the company has since gained a reputation as one of the leading system engineering
consulting and training addresses in Switzerland. He is an honorary member of SAQ, the Swiss Association
for Quality and was instrumental in the launch of the “Brückenwächter” (“Bridge Guard”) residence for
artists and scientists in Štúrovo, Slovakia.
Emmerich Fuchs
