Using Extreme Characters to Teach Requirements Engineering

One of the main challenges in teaching Software Engineering as an undergraduate course is making the need for software processes and documentation obvious. Armed with some knowledge of programming, students may feel inclined to skip any development phase not involving coding. This is most pronounced when dealing with the Requirements Engineering practices. In this paper, we describe a practical approach to teaching Requirements Engineering using Extreme Characters. The exercise aimed to achieve the following learning objectives: a) understanding the need of including the end user in any requirements analysis phase, b) identifying the requirements engineering phase as a iterative process, c) understanding the necessity of constantly double checking the analysts interpretation of the user requirements, d) ensuring the rigorous documentation of both user and system requirements, and e) identifying the place of requirements engineering in the overall development process, and the forces and challenges around this phase of development.