Rethinking non-functional requirements in systems engineering practice

Non-functional requirements (nFRs) are critical to systems development yet remain problematic in practice. There is a gap between academic work and practice stemming from a difference in the question being asked. Academic traditions ask, “what is an nFR?”, while practice asks, “how do I safeguard this property in my design?” In this Mikroniek article, an intervention-oriented framework is proposed that distinguishes three safeguarding mechanisms: functionalisation, budgeting and system-level validation. A decision logic based on three corresponding questions guides mechanism choice. This article does not present new practices but articulation of existing ones, providing shared vocabulary for knowledge transfer. (Image courtesy of Erik Puik)