According to ISO/IEC/IEEE 29148:2018, an attribute is an inherent property or characteristic that people or automated systems can distinguish quantitatively or qualitatively.
In requirements engineering, attributes provide metadata about requirements and other artifacts. For example, common attributes include status, priority, owner, source, version, and criticality.
Therefore, attributes support classification, filtering, reporting, and traceability. Moreover, an attribute schema defines the available attributes and their permitted values.
A requirements attribute describes metadata about a requirement. In contrast, a UML class attribute describes a property of a class.
Consistent attributes support reliable requirements management and informed decisions.
« Back to Glossary Index