Tool Mentor: Capturing a Common Vocabulary Using Rational RequisitePro«

Purpose

The purpose of defining a common vocabulary is to decrease ambiguity among team members and to establish a common language when talking about the system to build. A common vocabulary can be used in all textual descriptions of the system, especially in use-case descriptions.

Related Rational Unified Process Activities:

Business Modeling Workflow:

• Capture a Common Vocabulary (of the business-process analyst)

Requirements Workflow:

• Capture a Common Vocabulary (of the system analyst)

Overview

A Glossary provides a definition for each term commonly used in the description of the system to build. There is one Glossary document per project.

To document the project Glossary using Rational RequisitePro:

1. Create a Glossary document.
2. Complete the Glossary document.
3. (Optional) Mark requirements in the Glossary document.

1. Create a Glossary Document

The Glossary document contains terms and definitions identified during all activities of the project, especially during the Activity: Elicit Stakeholder Requests.

Tool Steps

To create the Glossary document:

1. On the RequisitePro Tool Palette, click Document > New. The Document Properties dialog appears.
2. In the Name field, type "Glossary" (this will be the way you refer to the Glossary document in RequisitePro).
3. In the Description field, type a short description.
4. In the Filename field, type a file name, which RequisitePro will use when saving the Glossary document to disk.
5. Select the "Glossary" document type and click OK. The template for this document type organizes the Glossary information into Term and Definition sections. RequisitePro opens the newly created Glossary document in the Word Workplace (the RequisitePro Microsoft Word interface).

For More Information

Refer to the following help topic in the RequisitePro online help:

• Creating requirements documents (Index: documents>creating)

2. Complete the Glossary Document

In the newly created Glossary document, for each term to define, add the term name and its definition. Consider using aliases for commonly used terms under the same definition (ex: Operator û see Machinist). We recommend using italics to refer to terms in the Glossary. Save the Glossary document in the Word Workplace by selecting RequisitePro > Document > Save.

3. (Optional) Mark Requirements in the Glossary Document

The Glossary does not contain requirements per se; however, there may be times when some Glossary terms could be used as names for classes, especially Entity Classes. See Class Design. By marking these terms as requirements, you can automatically create classes of that name in Rational Rose, using the Rational Synchronizer.

You may also want to keep track of the fact that terms have been redefined in the Glossary, and some documents need to be updated to reflect that change. Marking such terms as requirements will allow you to later set traceability links between Glossary terms and product features or systems requirements that might need to be reworded after a Glossary term definition has been revisited and agreed upon.

Tool Steps

To create requirements in the Glossary document:

1. For each term outlined in the Glossary document, select (highlight) the text of the term.
2. In the Word Workplace, do one of the following:
   • right-click and select Create Requirement.
   • click RequisitePro > Requirement > Create.
     The Requirement Properties dialog box appears.
3. Accept the Glossary Requirement Type (TERM) as the requirement type. Click OK.

For More Information

Refer to the following help topic in the RequisitePro online help:

• Creating requirements in a document (Index: requirements>creating>...in a document)

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