Requirements Engineering Process Research Articles

SysML-Based Requirement Management to Improve Software Development

Among the various steps in the life cycle of software development, system requirement management is an essential but often neglected step. Comprehensive requirement management can not only help developers to work on a system to meet the requirements of a project, but can also play a vital role in the communications among stakeholders. In general, natural languages are often used to describe and record user requirements; however, this results in ambiguity, inconsistency, imprecision and incompleteness. To increase the accuracy of requirement modeling and analysis, it is important to have appropriate management methods and tools such that the requirement engineering process can be supported within the project. In this work, we propose a System Modeling Language (SysML)-based requirement management methodology to assist in the collection and the modeling of user requirements. We also provide a convenient procedure and a prototype tool to model, analyze, validate and verify the recorded system requirements, and consequently to ensure that the system can satisfy users’ requirements.

Quintessence of Traditional and Agile Requirement Engineering

Requirement gathering for software development project is the most crucial stage and thus requirement engineering (RE) occupies the chief position in the software development. Countless techniques concerning the RE processes exist to make sure the requirements are coherent, compact and complete in all respects. In this way different aspects of RE are dissected and detailed upon. A comparison of RE in Agile and RE in Waterfall is expatiated and on the basis of the literature survey the overall Agile RE process is accumulated. Agile being a technique produces high quality software in relatively less time as compared to the conventional waterfall methodology. The paramount objective of this study is to take lessons from RE that Agile method may consider, if quality being the cardinal concern. The study is patterned on the survey of the previous research reported in the coexisting literature and the practices which are being pursued in the area.

Supporting Scope Tracking and Visualization for Very Large-Scale Requirements Engineering-Utilizing FSC+, Decision Patterns, and Atomic Decision Visualizations

Deciding the optimal project scope that fulfills the needs of the most important stakeholders is challenging due to a plethora of aspects that may impact decisions. Large companies that operate in rapidly changing environments experience frequently changing customer needs which force decision makers to continuously adjust the scope of their projects. Change intensity is further fueled by fierce market competition and hard time-to-market deadlines. Staying in control of the changes in thousands of features becomes a major issue as information overload hinders decision makers from rapidly extracting relevant information. This paper presents a visual technique, called Feature Survival Charts+ (FSC+), designed to give a quick and effective overview of the requirements scoping process for Very Large-Scale Requirements Engineering (VLSRE). FSC+ were applied at a large company with thousands of features in the database and supported the transition from plan-driven to a more dynamic and change-tolerant release scope management process. FSC+ provides multiple views, filtering, zooming, state-change intensity views, and support for variable time spans. Moreover, this paper introduces five decision archetypes deduced from the dataset and subsequently analyzed and the atomic decision visualization that shows the frequency of various decisions in the process. The capabilities and usefulness of FSC+, decision patterns (state changes that features undergo) and atomic decision visualizations are evaluated through interviews with practitioners who found utility in all techniques and indicated that their inherent flexibility was necessary to meet the varying needs of the stakeholders.

Validation to the Requirement Elicitation Framework via Metrics

Requirement elicitation is the most significant factor in the requirement engineering process. It is already proven fact that improper elicitation of the requirements leads to the failure of the project, product. To improve the process quality and of that of industry we need a better elicitation technique or elicitation process (framework) to make it better. In this paper we have proposed a methodology that helps elicitor to validate the requirement elicitation using prioritization techniques and framework and further it will help the elicitor to effectively, efficiently select the elicitation technique.

On the Role of Structural Holes in Requirements Identification

Requirements identification is a human-centric activity that involves interaction among multiple stakeholders. Traditional requirements engineering (RE) techniques addressing stakeholders’ social interaction are mainly part of a centralized process intertwined with a specific phase of software development. However, in open-source software (OSS) development, stakeholders’ social interactions are often decentralized, iterative, and dynamic. Little is known about new requirements identification in OSS and the stakeholders’ organizational arrangements supporting such an activity. In this article, we investigate the theory of structural hole from the context of contributing new requirements in OSS projects. Structural hole theory suggests that stakeholders positioned in the structural holes in their social network are able to produce new ideas. In this study, we find that structural hole positions emerge in stakeholders’ social network and these positions are positively related to contributing a higher number of new requirements. We find that along with structural hole positions, stakeholders’ role is also an important part in identifying new requirements. We further observe that structural hole positions evolve over time, thereby identifying requirements to realize enriched features. Our work advances the fundamental understanding of the RE process in a decentralized environment and opens avenues for improved techniques supporting this process.

Designing and assessing a course on prioritization and importance assessment in strategic non-routine requirements engineering processes

In this contribution, we present a course for making stakeholders in requirements engineering (RE) processes aware of the relevance of importance assessment (the thinking process that they go through while assessing requirement weights) and giving them some experience with specific aspects of the importance assessment process. We also analyze the experiences of the participants in five pilot sessions. In RE instruments, elicitation of requirement weights receives much attention. However, the processes that individual stakeholders go through while assessing weights are largely ignored or seen as a ‘black box’. In the course, participants gain experience with some common issues and pitfalls in assessing weights. Issues covered are: completeness and interdependence of requirements, causal relationships and the common denominator, handling ‘irrational’ requirements, and the meaning of ‘importance’ (priority). The course was given in various large organizations in the aerospace sector, and data on participants’ experiences were gathered by means of a standardized questionnaire. The extent to which the participants claimed they learned about the relevance of importance assessment and about how to perform it were, respectively, 2.89 and 2.72 on a scale from 1 to 5. The relevance of the various assignments was rated between 3.74 and 4.00 on a 1–5 scale. Our study indicates that the course, or elements of it, should be embedded in an organization’s work practices in order to achieve lasting effects.

Ethnographic field work in requirements engineering

The requirements engineering (RE) processes have become a key in developing and deploying enterprise information system (EIS) for organisations and corporations in various fields and industrial sectors. Ethnography is a contextual method allowing scientific description of the stakeholders, their needs and their organisational customs. Despite the recognition in the RE literature that ethnography could be helpful, the actual leverage of the method has been limited and ad hoc. To overcome the problems, we report in this paper a systematic mapping study where the relevant literature is examined. Building on the literature review, we further identify key parameters, their variations and their connections. The improved understanding about the role of ethnography in EIS RE is then presented in a consolidated model, and the guidelines of how to apply ethnography are organised by the key factors uncovered. Our study can direct researchers towards thorough understanding about the role that ethnography plays in EIS RE, and more importantly, to help practitioners better integrate contextually rich and ecologically valid methods in their daily practices.

Modeling and analyzing non-functional requirements interdependencies with neutrosofic logic

Abstract. Nonfunctional requirements refer to global properties of software. They are an important part of the requirement engineering process and play a key role in software quality. Current approaches for modelling nonfunctional requirements interdependencies have limitations. In this work we proposed a new method to model interdependencies in nonfunctional requirements using neutrosophic logic. This proposal has many advantages for dealing with indeterminacy making easy the elicitation ofknowledge. A case study is shown to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed method.

Analysis of Modeling Techniques used for Translating Natural Language Specification into Formal Software Requirements

The prerequisite to any software development process is to first capture and understand the intended behaviour of the software solution based on the gathered requirements and understanding the constraints related to it. Hence requirement engineering becomes a very crucial step. Requirements are specified in Natural language by the user and it has to be translated to a formal representation for automating the requirement engineering process and also to uncover inconsistencies, ambiguities and perform conflict management in software requirements. This paper studies some existing models used for converting loosely specified natural language to a formal linguistic construct for software requirements. Observations on various existing approaches in this context

UML-based requirement modeling of Web online synchronous collaborative public participatory GIS

This paper focuses on object-oriented software engineering (OOSE)-based software development life cycle (SDLC) for requirement analysis, design, and development of a Web collaborative public participatory geographic information system (PPGIS) (Co-PPGIS) infrastructure. Despite its importance, requirement engineering phase remains a neglected area in the geographical information system (GIS)-based SDLC. The absence of research and standardized requirement engineering (RE) process is more noticeable in the case of PPGIS applications, which are employed during municipality management, municipality planning, quick response, etc. This paper intends to introduce and suggest an OOSE standard requirement capturing model for the development of Web online Co-PPGIS. Using the unified modeling language (UML) Web-based Engineering (UWE) framework as the baseline, techniques for requirement elicitation, tailored for specific needs of synchronous collaborative PPGIS, are presented. Moreover, the requirement-gathering techniques range from checklists to creating user personas; the Web-based PPGIS aspect is handled through categorization of functional and non-functional requirements, including that of Web content and map visualization. Future work includes incorporation of UML-based requirement analysis and requirement validation techniques to complete the model. It is hoped with this research and better understanding of techniques and available methodology that requirement engineering practices will become widespread and contribute in adoption of a standardized RE process life cycle for PPGIS applications. Also, it is hypothesized that the Co-PPGIS would help to increase the degree to which the citizen, local bodies, environmental assessment, government agencies, and decision authorities work at the same time by using the single platform but at different locations with a lower cost and more effective real-time collaborative communication channels, partially due to the adoption of real-time geo-collaborative groupware technologies and OOSE-based requirement capturing methodology for the development of Co-PPGIS mapsharing mechanism.

Applications of ontologies in requirements engineering: a systematic review of the literature

There is an increase use of ontology-driven approaches to support requirements engineering (RE) activities, such as elicitation, analysis, specification, validation and management of requirements. However, the RE community still lacks a comprehensive understanding of how ontologies are used in RE process. Thus, the main objective of this work is to investigate and better understand how ontologies support RE as well as identify to what extent they have been applied to this field. In order to meet our goal, we conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) to identify the primary studies on the use of ontologies in RE, following a predefined review protocol. We then identified the main RE phases addressed, the requirements modelling styles that have been used in conjunction with ontologies, the types of requirements that have been supported by the use of ontologies and the ontology languages that have been adopted. We also examined the types of contributions reported and looked for evidences of the benefits of ontology-driven RE. In summary, the main findings of this work are: (1) there are empirical evidences of the benefits of using ontologies in RE activities both in industry and academy, specially for reducing ambiguity, inconsistency and incompleteness of requirements; (2) the majority of studies only partially address the RE process; (3) there is a great diversity of RE modelling styles supported by ontologies; (4) most studies addressed only functional requirements; (5) several studies describe the use/development of tools to support different types of ontology-driven RE approaches; (6) about half of the studies followed W3C recommendations on ontology-related languages; and (7) a great variety of RE ontologies were identified; nevertheless, none of them has been broadly adopted by the community. Finally, we conclude this work by showing several promising research opportunities that are quite important and interesting but underexplored in current research and practice.

A theoretical framework for requirements engineering and process improvement in small and medium software companies

Purpose– Requirements engineering (RE) and process improvement has been identified as one of the key factors for improving software quality. Despite this, little scholarly work has been done on developing ways to improve the RE process. The situation of RE and process improvement is even worse in small and medium enterprises that produce software. Consequently, the quality of software being produced by these companies has kept deteriorating. The purpose of this paper is to design a framework that will help small and medium software companies improve their RE processes in order to compete favorably with larger software companies, more especially in terms of software quality.Design/methodology/approach– A qualitative research approach was adapted. Four software companies in Uganda were purposively selected to participate in the study. Data were collected using questionnaires. The requirements for designing the framework were gathered and refined from both primary and secondary data.Findings– The key requirements for process improvement in small and medium software companies were identified as user involvement, use of evolutionary requirements engineering process improvement (REPI) strategy, change management, training and education, management support and commitment.Practical implications– The designed framework was validated to ensure that it can be applied in RE and process improvement in small and medium software companies. Validation results show that the proposed framework is applicable and can be used to improve RE and process improvement in small and medium software companies.Originality/value– The paper presents an improvement of the systematic approach to REPI by Kabaale and Nabukenya which is decomposed for easy understanding by non-technical readers and users.

A novel approach to streamline RE process for multi-agent systems

The intensification of ubiquitous computing has revitalised distributed multi-agent systems. Business and product requirements often change as development proceeds, making a straight-line path to requirement engineering (RE) impracticable. To cope up with the adaptability in the requirements, this work offers a novel evolutionary approach to revolutionise RE process for MAS. The proposed framework bridges the gap between users and developers by facilitating user-oriented view using user story cards and developer-oriented view using agent cards. To address inter-agent coordination issues, this work presents bilateral concepts-type of dependency and degree of dependency that assist the developers in reducing the trivial dependencies and thereby unnecessary communication overheads. An integrated approach for requirements prioritisation enables a large number of stakeholders to resolve their conflicts in deciding which agents are viable to achieve. In addition, a fuzzy traceability vector model and a coding scheme to specify the requirements of agents are the distinguished features of this work.

An Integration of UML Sequence Diagram with Formal Specification Methods—A Formal Solution Based on Z

UML Diagrams are considered as a main component in requirement engineering process and these become an industry standard in many organizations. UML diagrams are useful to show an interaction, behavior and structure of the system. Similarly, in requirement engineering, formal specification methods are also being used in crucial systems where precise information is required. It is necessary to integrate System Models with such formal methods to overcome the requirements errors i.e. contradiction, ambiguities, vagueness, incompleteness and mixed values of abstraction. Our objective is to integrate the Formal Specification Language (Z) with UML Sequence diagram, as sequence diagram is an interaction diagram which shows the interaction and proper sequence of components (Methods, procedures etc.) of the system. In this paper, we focus on components of UML Sequence diagram and then implement these components in formal specification language Z. And the results of this research papers are complete integrated components of Sequence diagram with Z schemas, which are verified by using tools and model based testing technique of Formal Specifications. Results can be more improved by integrating remaining components of Sequence and other UML diagrams into Formal Specification Language.

Towards Knowledge Management in RE Practices to Support Software Development

Requirement engineering in any software development is the most important phase to ensure the success or failure of software. Knowledge modeling and management are helping tools to learn the software organizations. The traditional Requirements engineering practices are based upon the interaction of stakeholders which causes iteratively changes in requirements and difficulties in communication and understanding problem domain etc. So, to resolve such issues we use knowledge based techniques to support the RE practices as well as software development process. Our technique is based on two prospective, theoretical and practical implementations. In this paper, we described the need of knowledge management in software engineering and then proposed a model based on knowledge management to support the software development process. To verify our results, we used controlled experiment approach. We have implemented our model, and verify results by using and without using proposed knowledge based RE process. Our resultant proposed model can save the overall cost and time of requirement engineering process as well as software development.

Impediments to Regulatory Compliance of Requirements in Contractual Systems Engineering Projects

Large-scale contractual systems engineering projects often need to comply with myriad government regulations and standards as part of contractual obligations. A key activity in the requirements engineering (RE) process for such a project is to demonstrate that all relevant requirements have been elicited from the regulatory documents and have been traced to the contract as well as to the target system components. That is, the requirements have met regulatory compliance. However, there are impediments to achieving this level of compliance due to such complexity factors as voluminous contract, large number of regulatory documents, and multiple domains of the system. Little empirical research has been conducted in the scientific community on identifying these impediments. Knowing these impediments is a driver for change in the solutions domain (i.e., creating improved or new methods, tools, processes, etc.) to deal with such impediments. Through a case study of an industrial RE project, we have identified a number of key impediments to achieving regulatory compliance in a large-scale, complex, systems engineering project. This project is an upgrade of a rail infrastructure system. The key contribution of the article is a number of hitherto uncovered impediments described in qualitative and quantitative terms. The article also describes an artefact model, depicting key artefacts and relationships involved in such a compliance project. This model was created from data gathered and observations made in this compliance project. In addition, the article describes emergent metrics on regulatory compliance of requirements that can possibly be used for estimating the effort needed to achieve regulatory compliance of system requirements.

Validation of a Systematic Approach to Requirements Engineering Process Improvement in SMEs in a Design Science Framework

Requirements Engineering (RE) acts as a conduit between the needs of system users and the capabilities of software produced. Because of this, many Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have been tempted to invest in improving corresponding processes. Regrettably though, many process improvement approaches for RE do not meet SMEs' needs and are often hard to apply in these companies especially in transitional countries such as Uganda. This study therefore, presents a validation of a Systematic Approach to Requirements Engineering Process Improvement that can be used to enable RE process improvement in SME software companies in transitional countries. The validation was conducted following a design science research approach where four (4) case organizations were used. From the study, it is reported that the approach is indeed easy to use, understandable and is applicable to all kinds of SMEs that would wish to conduct RE process improvement.

Situated Boundary Spanning

Requirements Engineering (RE) faces considerable challenges that are often related to boundaries between various stakeholders involved in the software development process. These challenges may be addressed by boundary spanning practices. We examine how boundary spanning can be adapted to address RE challenges in Product Family Development (PFD), a context that involves complex RE. We study two different development approaches, namely, conventional and agile PFD, because these present considerably different challenges. Our findings from a multisite case study present boundary spanning as a solution to improve the quality of RE processes and highlight interesting differences in how boundary spanner roles and boundary objects are adapted in conventional and agile PFD.

A Proposed Process Model for Requirements Engineering using Delphi Techniques for Prioritisation

Requirements engineering (RE) addresses the first software development step and lays the foundation for a successful system. Consequently, ability to identify problems and suggestions for improvements in the RE process opens up significant potential for increasing the success of software projects. Since RE process is naturally collaborative in nature, the intensiveness from both knowledge and human perspectives opens up the problem of decision making on requirements that can be facilitated by requirements prioritisation. In this regard, the paper opined the need for requirements prioritization techniques that will help the developers to obtain consensus among stakeholders using a suitable technique. In particular, the paper proposed a RE process model using Delphi technique. The Delphi technique was suggested in this paper to facilitate and enhance the process of requirements prioritisation in a multilevel prioritisation dimension. Therefore, the proposed model on implementation will contribute to the formulation of an interactive framework for requirements prioritisation to produce a requirement ordering which complies with the existing priorities.

A Review of Requirement Engineering Issues and Challenges in Various Software Development Methods

Requirement Engineering (RE) is a systemic and integrated process of eliciting, elaborating, negotiating, prioritizing, specifying, validating and managing the requirements of a system. The detailed and agreed requirements are documented and specified to serve as the basis for further system development activities. The software industry has moved from traditional software development method to service oriented software development. While many researchers and practitioners have observed issues and challenges in Requirement Engineering phase specific to a software method, very little attention has been given to investigate diversity of issues and challenges of RE in different software development methods under one umbrella. This paper tries to review significant issues and challenges of RE from traditional software development method to recent service oriented software development method. The study unveils that there is a wide scope for developing new approaches and techniques in requirement engineering to resolve problems observed in various SE methods. The review discussion reveals the need of standardization and automation of RE process especially for Service oriented software development. KeywordsEngineering, RE phase, SE methods, traditional software development, service oriented software development, automation of RE