To lay the foundation for discussion here is an example that I am currently working on for a current project.

Inquiry vs. Report (Definitions (http://www.thefreedictionary.com)

Inquiry (noun) - a request for information; a question

Inquire (verb) - to seek information by asking a question

Report (noun) - an account presented usually in detail

Report (verb) - to write or provide an account or summation of for publication or broadcast

I frequently reviewing existing documentation to identify the business concepts and terms, which then leads to defining these business terms as analysis classes (e.g. product). In the terms of the above definitions I would consider the capability to view/update the details of a product as an Inquiry, while viewing a list of products as a report.

The distinction I am considering is that an inquiry feature may be expected to be extended with CRUD operations to manage business object's data, while a report feature would not.

Furthur analysis of a user's needs may identify the requirement that they be allowed to edit multiple business objects and multiple attributes within one UI, however the concept of an Inquiry would remain the same.

Obviously there are many similarities between the two concepts and it might be useful to model Inquiry as a specialized for of a report. E.g., they both have selection criteria, execution options, and delivery/presention options. However the fundemental concept difference would be the separating data entity CRUD operations.

The difference between these two concepts would apply ONLY within the analysis effort as the design choices would NOT be constrained by these distinctions.

Furthur the ultimate requirements statements derived from the model (using statement templates) would NOT reference these concepts. This is to support the goal of constraining the terms used within the requirement statements to a structured business vocabulary.

Let me know your thoughts, concerns, or recommendations,

thanks,

David

I worked on an effort to establish requirement patterns for avionics software, and found the following book to be useful:

Software Requirement Patterns by Stephen Withall

I realize this is only somewhat related to your efforts, but it may be a good resource.

http://www.amazon.com/Software-Requirement-Patterns-Developer-Practices/dp/0735623988

I'm working on the topic of how to prioritize non-functional requirements for critical software, anyone can help me????????

@ Marelis, what help specifically do you need? You need to mention it