An example software requirements specification in a Use Case driven format

I took some time yesterday and reformatted my free example software requirements specification, whittling it down to 36 pages, from the original release, which was over 200 pages. As you might guess, the new pages are longer, and I've also reformatted the specification, both of which help to make it much easier to read.

Background on this software requirements specification

This free example software requirements specification comes from a real-world project (my customer gave me permission to scrub it and release it here), and is a very formal, Use Case driven requirements specification. I suspect that it's a lot like what's being taught in college courses about Use Case driven requirements.

There was so much disagreement on this particular project that we actually had six major releases of this software requirements specification, and one minor release (and a lot of meetings), so this document is referred to as the "6.1" release. The document is also heavily color-coded, because all the reviewers asked if I could make it easier on them, and color all the new lines, so they wouldn't have to re-read the entire document. (This eventually became a software requirements "best practice" for us.)

I need to add that this was the last "formal" use case driven requirements specification I did with this customer, using this format. After this particular phase of our project, we all got to know each very well, lol, and I quit using this template-driven approach, and switched more to user stories, adding in things like pre-conditions and post-conditions only when I thought it was necessary.

At the time of this requirements specification, my client and I still had a fixed-price relationship, so I felt like everything had to be well understood, but after this phase, our relationship relaxed a little bit.

Link to our free, Use Case drive software requirements specification

Again, here's a link to my new (newly-released, newly-reformatted) example requirements specification, in a Use Case driven format. I hope you like it, and I hope it's helpful.