https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/index.html Schedule Here is a week-by-week schedule the term’s topics, main deliverables, and due dates. Yellow highlighted deliverables are those that involve consultations with project stakeholders, and cyan highlighted deliverables are those that involve activities with buddy teams. Be sure to plan in advance so that you have sufficient time to schedule and conduct these interviews/meetings and analyze their results. Hugo en-us https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week01/index.html Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week01/index.html 1. Watch Lecture Videos Watch the week 01 lecture videos, linked below. The lecture videos throughout the term will cover topics on the philosophy, processes, practices, and technologies for software requirements and specifications. In general, you are expected to watch the week’s videos before your team meeting each week. Unfortunately, you are already behind. Ideally these videos would have been watched in preparation for the team meetings happening on the first day of class – which involve teams. Please watch them as soon as possible and watch the Week 02 videos in preparation for team meetings on Jan 13. https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week02/index.html Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week02/index.html 1. Watch Lecture Videos Watch the week 02 lecture videos in advance of your team meeting. Videos Problem Fit Video Slides Business Requirements Video Slides Lean Canvas Model Video Slides Hypothesis Testing Video Slides Problem Interview Video Slides Lecture References: See the course Resources→References for instructions on how to access lecture references. Karl Wiegers and Joy Beatty, Software Requirements, 3ed, Microsoft Press, 2013. Chapter 1: The essential software requirement Chapter 5: Establishing the business requirements Steve Blank and Bob Dorf, The Startup Owner’s Manual, K& S Ranch Publishing, 2012. Chapter 1: The Path to Disaster: A Startup Is Not a Small Version of a Big Company Chapter 3: The Customer Development Manifesto Ash Maurya, Running Lean, 2ed, O’Reilly, 2012. Chapter 1: Meta-Principles Chapter 3: Creating Your Lean Canvas Chapter 5: Get Ready to Experiment Chapter 7: The Problem Interview 2. Team Building As a continuation of last week’s efforts to start gelling as a team, spend 20 min together working through this week’s Fast Friends Questions (distributed in class). Make your way through as many questions as you can; all team members should answer all of the questions that the team reaches during this time allotment. https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week03/index.html Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week03/index.html 1. Watch Lecture Videos Watch the week 03 lecture videos in advance of your team meeting. Videos Stakeholder Analysis Video Slides Talking with People Video Slides Personas Video Slides Elicitation Video Slides Lecture References: See Resources→References for instructions on how to access lecture references. Karl Wiegers and Joy Beatty, Software Requirements, 3ed, Microsoft Press, 2013. Chapter 2: Requirements from the customer’s perspective Chapter 6: Finding the voice of the user Chapter 7: Requirements elicitation Ian F. Alexander, “A Taxonomy of Stakeholders: Human Roles in System Development” International Journal of Technology and Human Interaction, 2005, vol. 1, no. 1, 23-59 Giff Constable, Talking to Humans, 2014. “How to Find Your Interview Subjects” Stefan Blomkvist, “Persona–an Overview”, in Theoretical perspectives in human-computer interaction. Stockholm, IPLab, KTH, 2002. Suzanne Robertson and James Robertson, Mastering the Requirements Process, 3ed., Addison-Wesley Professional, 2012. Chapter 7: Understanding the Real Problem 2. Team Bonding and Participation As a continuation of previous weeks’ efforts to start gelling as a team, spend 20 min working through the last batch of Fast Friends (distributed in class). Make your way through as many questions as you can; all team members should answer all of the questions that the team reaches during this time allotment. https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week04/index.html Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week04/index.html 1. Watch Lecture Videos Watch the week 04 lecture videos in advance of your team meeting. Videos Use Cases Video Slides User Stories Video Slides Lecture References: See the course Resources→References for instructions on how to access lecture references. Karl Wiegers and Joy Beatty, Software Requirements, 3ed, Microsoft Press, 2013. Chapter 8: Understanding user requirements Craig Larman, Applying UML and Patterns, 3ed, Prentice Hall, 2004. Chapter 6: Use Cases 2. Finish Conducting Problem-Fit Interviews and Write Up Results Finish recruiting at least five members of your project’s target customer segment to participate in Problem-Fit Interviews. Interviewees cannot be minors (i.e., must be a least 13 years of age) and cannot be close friends or family. Try to find target users beyond just fellow students. You must follow ethics procedure: https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week05/index.html Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week05/index.html 1. Watch Lecture Videos Watch the week 05 lecture videos in advance of your team meeting. Videos Workflow Models Video Slides Quality Requirements Video Slides Conflict Management Video Slides Team Conflicts Video Slides Lecture References: See the course Resources→References for instructions on how to access lecture references. Karl Wiegers and Joy Beatty, Software Requirements, 3ed, Microsoft Press, 2013. Chapter 12: A picture is worth 1024 words Chapter 14: Beyond Functionality Soren Lauesen, Software Requirements: Styles and Techniques, 1ed., Pearson Education, 2001. Chapter 6: Quality Requirements 2. Updated Use Case Diagram Provide an updated Use Case diagram that includes the new use cases that were elicited with other teams in the Elicitation exerise in Week 4. Also, incorporate any feedback and suggestions for improvement that the TAs identified in your previous submission. Your models should have 5+ full use cases (don’t count sub use-cases). As before, use a diagram or modelling tool like LucidChart to create your use-case diagram. Supplement your diagram with a short description of each use case, explaining what that use case is about, and a short description of each actor. Put your use-case diagram and descriptions in the PDF file named «TeamName»_D5.pdf and submit it to LEARN. https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week06/index.html Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week06/index.html 1. Watch Lecture Videos Watch the week 06 lecture videos in advance of your team meeting. Videos Risk Management Video Slides Scope Creep Video Slides Prioritizing Requirements Video Slides Lecture References: See Resources→References for instructions on how to access lecture references. Karl Wiegers and Joy Beatty, Software Requirements, 3ed, Microsoft Press, 2013. Chapter 5: Establishing the business requirements Chapter 16: First Things First: Setting Requirements Priorities Chapter 28: Change happens Chapter 32: Software Requirements and Risk Management Joachim Karlsson and Kevin Ryan, “A Cost-Value Approach for Prioritizing Requirements.” in IEEE Software, vol. 14, no. 5 (Sep. 1997), pp. 67-74. 2026-02-04: Byron and Tales will be available during class time to serve as interviewees. This reduces the number of outside interviewees that you need to find from 5 to 3. You will need to come to class prepared to conduct the interviews. https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week07/index.html Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week07/index.html 1. Watch Lecture Videos Watch the week 07 lecture videos in advance of your team meeting. Videos Specifications Video Slides Scenarios Video Slides Lecture References: See Resources→References for instructions on how to access lecture references. Michael Jackson. ”The Meaning of Requirements”, in Annals of Software Engineering, vol. 3, 1997, pp. 5-21. Alistair Cockburn, Paul Bramble, Andy Pols, Steve Adolph, Patterns for Effective Use Cases, Addison- Wesley Professional, 2002. Chapter 6: Steps and Scenarios 2. Requirements, Specifications, and Assumptions This task is going to be difficult to understand without having watched the lecture video on Specifications. For this question, identify the three (3) use cases that were deemed in Deliverable 6 to be the most important to your project (from the Kano prioritization exercise). But do not use use cases that the TAs have deemed to be too simple or not orthogonal to each other. For each of these key use cases https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week08/index.html Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week08/index.html 1. Watch Lecture Videos Watch the week 08 lecture videos in advance of your team meeting. Videos Domain Models Video Slides Specification Domain Models Video Slides Lecture References: See Resources→References for instructions on how to access lecture references. Craig Larman, Applying UML and Patterns, 3ed, Prentice Hall, 2004. Chapter 9: Domain Models 2. Specification Domain Model Your team is to produce a (specification-level) Domain Model for your course project. Your Domain Model should include all of the Environmental Phenomena needed to describe the Requirements of your project (e.g., actors; adjacent systems; real-world entities, events, and information that are external to your system and that your system senses, tracks, controls, etc.), plus any Interface Phenomena (e.g., interface entities or devices of your system; or information that is shared between the system and the real world via the system’s interface, like inputs, outputs, accounts, records, input requests, notifications, reports, query results, and so on) and are used to describe the Specifications of your project. If your project is a cyber system, then the entities in your Domain Model are likely to be all (1) actors, (2) adjacent systems, and (3) interface information that are known by both actors/adjacent systems and your system. Whereas if your project is a cyber-physical system, then it is likely that your Domain Model has (1) actors, (2) adjacent systems, and (3) domain entities/information that reside in the real world and that can be sensed or controlled by the system only through introduced (4) interface devices (sensors, actuators). https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week09/index.html Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week09/index.html 1. Watch Lecture Videos Watch the week 09 lecture videos in advance of your team meeting. Videos Prototyping Video Slides User Interfaces Video Slides Solution-Fit Hypothesis Testing Video Slides Quick and Frequent Product Testing and Assessment, Mark Pincus, CEO and Founder of Zynga (4:26) Software Requirement Specification (SRS) Video Slides Lecture References: See Resources→References for instructions on how to access lecture references. https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week10/index.html Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week10/index.html 1. Watch Lecture Videos Watch the week 10 lecture videos in advance of your team meeting. Videos State Machine Models Video Slides Hierarchical State Machines Video Slides Concurrent State Machines Video Slides Navigation Diagrams Video Slides Lecture References: See Resources→References for instructions on how to access lecture references. Craig Larman, Applying UML and Patterns, 3ed., Prentice Hall, 2004 Chapter 29: UML State Machine Diagrams and Modeling Lenny Delligatti, SysML Distilled: A Brief Guide to the Systems Modeling Language, Addison-Wesley Professional, 2013. Chapter 8: State Machine Diagrams 2. Feedback on Other Team’s Solution-Fit Interviews Info This section was moved from W09 to W10 on 2026-03-11. https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week11/index.html Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week11/index.html 1. Watch Lecture Videos Watch the week 11 lecture videos in advance of your team meeting. Videos Software Estimation Video Slides Estimating Size Video Slides Estimating Effort Video Slides Lecture by TalesVideo Lecture References: See Resources→References for instructions on how to access lecture references. Steve McConnell, Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art, Microsoft Press, 2006. Details Tales (our TA) has recorded a short lecture on a Reqs ’n Specs topic of his choice (in consultation with me). It is part of the official course content and will be on the final exam. https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week12/index.html Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000 https://student.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~cs445/Winter2026/schedule/week12/index.html 1. Watch Lecture Videos No videos! Work on your SRS! 2. Complete your SRS Please refer to the Project→SRS page. Due Next Monday (April 6, 8:59pm ET) Every team: Create a single PDF named «TeamName»_SRS.pdf that includes the following, and submit it to LEARN Team Name Final SRS Every Outgoing Team Leader: (Due Thursday, 8:59pm via LEARN) Submit «TeamName»_PeerEval_5.pdf Every CS645 student: Submit your Grad Lecture (report)