A Proposal of Requirement Definition Method with Patterns for Element / Network Management

For the efficient development of Operation Support Systems (OSSs), we propose a requirement definition method to help specifiers create high quality specifications easily and quickly. A feature of the method is that it uses requirement definition patterns based on common knowledge. The patterns provide solutions to problems in the definition process and help specifiers. We construct requirement definition patterns for Element / Network Management Systems, such as a pattern with effectiveness to unify sequence diagrams related to system behavior. The method also includes a mechanism to help anyone to use the patterns easily that is characterized in using roles in sequence diagrams. To verify the effectiveness of our proposal, we use two case studies to show that our method has reduced the time needed to create specifications, and has improved their quality.