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I have seen and read quite a few books about software design (using UML, etc.), and others about user experience, GUIs, etc. but I'm looking for books that describe the process that happens before all of that.

I'm looking for the pre-development stuff. How to develop a cohesive and comprehensive plan for what the application is functionally supposed to do, leading to flow-charts and a functional specification, etc. So I guess my question is in two parts:

Is there a book out there that's the de-facto standard for describing best practices, design methodologies, and other helpful information about functional requirements analysis? What about that book makes it special?

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Hi tjb1982, open-ended book recommendation questions don't work well here, as they tend to be a list of people's favorite book with no explanation about why the books are any use. I've revised your question to better fit with what types of book questions we do allow here. For more information, check out Are book recommendations on-topic?. – user8 Oct 21 '11 at 20:38
That really gets to the heart of what I was trying to ask anyway. Thank you. – user25791 Oct 21 '11 at 20:49

We're looking for long answers that provide some explanation and context. Don't just give a one-line answer: please explain why you're recommending it as a solution. Answers that don't explain anything will be deleted. See Good Subjective, Bad Subjective for more information.

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When it comes to requirements specifications, my go-to books are Karl Wieger's Software Requirements and More About Software Requirements. Together, these books discuss the majority of the topics needed for requirements engineering, from defining stakeholders and requirements to establishing a vision and scope to capturing and prioritizing requirements.

Software Requirements tends to focus more on specifications and requirements engineering techniques. More About Software Requirements discusses other methods of capturing requirements, such as use cases and determining the detail needed in the documents that are used to capture requirements.

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Functional design is I reckon a bit of an older term used during the times (D)SDM was popular. I reckon nowadays it's called Analysis or gathering requirements.

I've been introduced to the subject of requirements analysis through a book written by Ian Sommerville called "Software engineering" That helped me put processes involved in creating software in perspective. The book explains what needs to be acomplished, why and how it can be done.

Ian Sommerville also has written a book on the specific subject of requirements analysis. http://www.amazon.com/Requirements-Engineering-Good-Practice-Guide/dp/0471974447/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319274316&sr=1-5

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"Go look somewhere else" is not an answer. Check out the post notice. – Matthew Read Oct 22 '11 at 4:28

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