How to Determine if a Requirement is Atomic

Name: How to Determine if a Requirement is Atomic
Type: Rules
Status: finished
Version: 2007-05-07

Gist: Atomic requirements are a prerequisite for specs of product lines, of concurrent product releases, and of developments, in which requirements are likely to change during one release of the product.

R1: A requirement is likely to be atomic if you cannot say "this requirement is partially implemented".
R2: A requirement is likely to be atomic if it decomposes a higher-level requirement AND you can justify it by saying "if I don't write it like this, the higher-level requirement wouldn't make sense" (not: is incomplete, or is unspecific).

Note: R2 also tests that the requirement isn't specifying a superfluous solution to the higher-level requirement.