Requirements Engineering Techniques Research Articles

The application of AI techniques in requirements classification: a systematic mapping

Requirement Analysis is the essential sub-field of requirements engineering (RE). From the last decade, numerous automatic techniques are widely exploited in requirements analysis. In this context, requirements identification and classification is challenging for RE community, especially in context of large corpus and app review. As a consequence, several Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques such as Machine learning (ML), Deep learning (DL) and transfer learning (TL)) have been proposed to reduce the manual efforts of requirement engineer. Although, these approaches reported promising results than traditional automated techniques, but the knowledge of their applicability in real-life and actual use of these approaches is yet incomplete. The main objective of this paper is to systematically investigate and better understand the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques in identification and classification of software requirements. This study conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) and collect the primary studies on the use of AI techniques in requirements classification. (1) this study found that 60 studies are published that adopted automated techniques in requirements classification. The reported results indicate that transfer learning based approaches extensively used in classification and yielding most accurate results and outperforms the other ML and DL techniques. (2) The data extraction process of SLR indicates that Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) are widely used in selected studies. (3) Precision and Recall are the commonly used metrics for evaluating the performance of automated techniques. This paper revealed that while these AI approaches reported promising results in classification. The applicability of these existing techniques in complex and real-world settings has not been reported yet. This SLR calls for the urge for the close alliance between RE and AI techniques to handle the open issues confronted in the development of some real-world automated system.

Sustaining human health: A requirements engineering perspective

In our current day and age, Earth suffers under the human ecological footprint, which influences our health and well-being. Technological solutions, including software-related ones, may help tackle these concerns for humanity. However, the development of such solutions requires special attention and effort to overcome human, public, and social barriers that might prevent them from being effective. The Requirements Engineering for Well-Being, Aging, and Health (REWBAH) workshop gathering in 2021 focused on addressing the challenge of how Requirements Engineering (RE) knowledge and practices can be applied to the development of information systems that support and promote long-lasting, sustained, and healthier behavior and choices by individuals. An interactive discussion among subject matter experts and practitioners participating in the REWBAH’21 revolved around several questions. In a subsequent qualitative analysis, the emerging themes were arranged in the sustainable-health RE (SusHeRE) framework to describe RE processes that address both sustainability and health goals. In this vision paper, we present our framework, which includes four main SusHeRE goals defined according to the changes in RE that we deem necessary for achieving a positive contribution of RE on sustainability and health. These goals involve improved RE Techniques, Multidisciplinary Expertise, Education Agenda, and Public and Social Ecology.

Understanding general concepts of requirements engineering through design thinking: An experimental study with students

AbstractTeaching requirements engineering (RE) is one of the challenging parts of any software engineering (SE) education curriculum because it deals with understanding the problem from multiple perspectives and acquiring a holistic view of the system. Academicians have adopted several innovative approaches to teaching RE concepts to students, and design thinking (DT) is one of them. DT integrates the needs of people, technology, and requirements and can help learn and apply human‐centered techniques to solve problems. An experimental study is conducted with 315 undergraduate students to realize how they can learn the RE process effectively by combining DT methods with the RE concepts for an effective RE education. This study intends to identify how this integration help students in using multiple elicitation methods, better visualization and understanding of the system requirements, and achieving various teaching objectives. An experimental study was planned and executed with students by integrating DT methods for RE activities from the beginning of problem definition to the final solution. The evaluation was done by collecting students' responses to pre‐survey and post‐survey questions capturing the students' perspectives on the RE and DT techniques. The students' responses suggested that the DT drive RE activities to improve their learning, thinking abilities, engagement with the team, and teamwork. Additionally, the students' artifacts during the DT process have also been evaluated. The use of DT methods helped in understanding the elicitation process and, consequently, helped reach the solution.

On the Adoption of Requirements Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction Techniques to Produce Business Intelligence Applications

On the Adoption of Requirements Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction Techniques to Produce Business Intelligence Applications

Assessment of Requirements Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction Techniques in the Production Process of Business Intelligence Applications

Assessment of Requirements Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction Techniques in the Production Process of Business Intelligence Applications

On the Adoption of Requirements Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction Techniques to Produce Business Intelligence Applications

On the Adoption of Requirements Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction Techniques to Produce Business Intelligence Applications

On the Adoption of Requirements Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction Techniques to Produce Business Intelligence Applications

On the Adoption of Requirements Engineering and Human-Computer Interaction Techniques to Produce Business Intelligence Applications

Engineering and management of information modeling requirements

The presented document discusses the application of Requirements Engineering and Management methods and techniques for identification and traceability of requirements to support Information Modelling during the design process. Errors and ambiguities are generally found during the briefing phase. Pre-occupancy simulation on the information model verifies the interactions among future users to meet the intended use. The information model allows to monitor the gap between expected and actual quality throughout the design process.

Effects of common requirements engineering techniques on requirements engineering success in agile environments: A case study from Sri Lanka

Requirements engineering is the process of exploring, analyzing, documenting and handling the needs to be facilitated through a computer-based system that is being developed. Though software solutions fail due to many reasons, Flawed Requirements Engineering (RE) is one of the main causes leading to failure of software projects especially in agile environments where requirements and solutions evolve through collaboration between self-organizing cross-functional teams. Therefore, succeeding in RE is an essential factor which influences success of the entire software project. In the light of achieving project success, various methods have been introduced to deal with RE. Main aim of this study is to explore the relationship between commonly used techniques and successful agile requirements engineering in agile environments with a special emphasis to Sri Lankan context. A secondary objective was to suggest innovative recommendations to software solution developers to achieve RE success. Five research questions were formulated to explore the relationship between mostly common techniques of requirements management and success of agile requirements engineering. Through key readings related to agile project development, authors have identified five key success factors as having an influence on successful project completion in an agile environment and are being tested in this research. Authors have designed the study taking an epistemological standpoint of positivism, using quantitative methods and case study strategy to derive conclusions. The entire population 130 employees of the case organization been considered for this study. The quantitative analysis of was conducted based on 105 valid responses gained through a five-point Likert scaled questionnaire from the case organization. It has been discovered that these common requirement engineering techniques are correlated with project success in agile environments. Further, scrutiny of each requirements engineering phase, led to finding a set of most effective techniques to be utilized in an agile environment contributing to software development project success.
 Keywords: Requirements engineering, agile software development, project failures

Requirements Engineering: An Industrial Survey in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries

Requirements engineering (RE), the process of defining the requirements of a system, is critical to the successful implementation of software projects. Although many studies have been globally conducted on the different facets of RE in software engineering, studies explicitly focusing on the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have been scarce. GCC-specific RE research studies are needed because of the unique cultural characteristics and common work ethics in GCC countries. Besides, the investigation of the state of RE practices in the countries of the GCC is crucial as the globalization of software development becomes imminent. This study compares the state of RE practices within the six countries of the GCC, namely, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Oman, using six RE factors. To understand commonalities and differences in the RE practices and methods, 163 software practitioners in GCC countries are surveyed in this study. The results show that the RE practices are relatively similar among the six countries, with subtle differences. Initiating software-related projects with unclear requirements and undefined project scopes are the two major limitations of the RE practices among the survey participants. The results of this study contribute to providing project managers and system analysts, who are working globally and within the GCC countries, with valuable decision-making tools to help them consider the identified RE techniques, methods, and challenges and their related risks early in their software development projects

Formal Specification Approach for Smart Space Development

Being an important application of the Internet of Things, smart spaces are increasingly developed throughout the world for different purposes ranging from home automation to smart grids. Despite the considerable focus given to the practical development of smart spaces, there are few attempts of utilizing formal methods in this domain. Especially, the requirements of developing a smart space have not yet been formally specified, to the best of the authors’ knowledge. To fill this gap, a formal specification approach is presented in this paper for smart space development. The proposed approach first identifies the key components of a smart space, then it uses a state-based formal specification language – Z, to formally specify the requirements of these components. The requirements of developing a hypothetical smart space are considered for formal specification in this paper. This work does not only demonstrate how the components of complex systems, such as smart spaces, can elegantly be modeled using a Software Engineering formalism. But it can also be used as a step towards defining a holistic smart space development framework, along with requirement engineering and system design techniques.

Exploring Impact of Requirements Engineering on Other IT Project Areas – Case Study

Requirements Engineering (RE) is recognized as one of the most important (yet difficult) areas of software engineering that has a significant impact on other areas of IT projects and their final outcomes. Empirical studies investigating this impact are hard to conduct, mainly due to the great effort required. It is thus difficult for both researchers and industry practitioners to make evidence-based evaluations about how decisions about RE practices translate into requirement quality and influence other project areas. We propose an idea of a lightweight approach utilizing widely-used tools to enable such an evaluation without extensive effort. This is illustrated with a pilot study where the data from six industrial projects from a single organization were analyzed and three metrics regarding the requirement quality, rework effort, and testing were used to demonstrate the impact of different RE techniques. We also discuss the factors that are important for enabling the broader adoption of the proposed approach.

An Automated Tool for Inspection of Requirements Engineering Techniques

From last few decades, researchers and practitioners have well recognized the significance of Requirements Engineering. Requirements Engineering stage is the foundation stone on which the entire building named software can be built. There are several Requirements Engineering (RE) techniques exists but requirements engineer choose a specific technique for a particular software project with their own preferences or organization standards. There is not only little guidance available for analyzing Requirements Engineering techniques but also all the existing researches focus on qualitative measures. There is no consideration of physical measures while analyzing and accepting a technique for a particular project. Nowadays customers satisfaction is also gaining great importance so customer perspective should also be taken into account. We have performed deep literature review and noted that analysis and selection of Requirements Engineering technique should consider all relevant attributes of each techniques and their mapping with project, people or other factors. There is a need to thoroughly comprehend and evaluate all the existing techniques with respect to analyst preferences, client experiences, project attributes, software process model characteristics. To do so, fuzzy clustering method is implemented in MATLAB. The key emphasis of this paper is to study and list all possible Requirements Engineering techniques related to Elicitation, Prioritization, Documentation, Verification and Validation, etc. The research work also analyzes attributes of each RE technique using Fuzzy C mean clustering and K mean clustering methods. The results of clustering provide a set of techniques, from which requirements engineer can select for specific phase of Requirements Engineering. The substantiation of the research work is done with the help of a case study that is having some known problem domain characteristics

Status Quo in Requirements Engineering

Requirements Engineering (RE) has established itself as a software engineering discipline over the past decades. While researchers have been investigating the RE discipline with a plethora of empirical studies, attempts to systematically derive an empirical theory in context of the RE discipline have just recently been started. However, such a theory is needed if we are to define and motivate guidance in performing high quality RE research and practice. We aim at providing an empirical and externally valid foundation for a theory of RE practice, which helps software engineers establish effective and efficient RE processes in a problem-driven manner. We designed a survey instrument and an engineer-focused theory that was first piloted in Germany and, after making substantial modifications, has now been replicated in 10 countries worldwide. We have a theory in the form of a set of propositions inferred from our experiences and available studies, as well as the results from our pilot study in Germany. We evaluate the propositions with bootstrapped confidence intervals and derive potential explanations for the propositions. In this article, we report on the design of the family of surveys, its underlying theory, and the full results obtained from the replication studies conducted in 10 countries with participants from 228 organisations. Our results represent a substantial step forward towards developing an empirical theory of RE practice. The results reveal, for example, that there are no strong differences between organisations in different countries and regions, that interviews, facilitated meetings and prototyping are the most used elicitation techniques, that requirements are often documented textually, that traces between requirements and code or design documents are common, that requirements specifications themselves are rarely changed and that requirements engineering (process) improvement endeavours are mostly internally driven. Our study establishes a theory that can be used as starting point for many further studies for more detailed investigations. Practitioners can use the results as theory-supported guidance on selecting suitable RE methods and techniques.

An agile approach for managing requirements change to improve learning and adaptability

Abstract Nowadays agile development has become a mainstream development methodology. Yet agile is still lacking in how in-depth it deals with Requirement Engineering (RE) compared to the other development stages. There have been attempts to apply agile RE techniques to traditional development and conversely to apply traditional RE techniques to agile development. But the biggest problem is that it is difficult to maintain the essence of agile which is to “collaborate”, “(iterative and frequent) inspect and adapt”, and “deliver customer value”. In this paper, we define six criteria for an agile requirement management approach and propose a lightweight agile approach that maintains the characteristics of agile while combining the RE techniques of academia, business analyst, and agile & lean community. Furthermore, we show an industrial case study which we've applied our approach.

Requirement elicitation techniques for an improved case based lesson planning system

Purpose This paper presents a recommendation on how one requirement elicitation technique supports the other techniques in defining system requirement for a case-based system. A case-based lesson planning system aims to assist teachers in constructing quality lesson plans through its cycle which begins with case retrieval. To retrieve relevant lesson plans, appropriate inputs should be used and the intended output needs to be identified via suitable requirement elicitation techniques. The use of a single technique might result in inadequate requirement specification, thus affecting the quality of the output requirements as well as quality of the final information system. Design/methodology/approach Requirement elicitation was carried out in three phases: phase I involved document review, phase II was an interview and phase III used a survey. Respondents of the study comprised experienced teachers as well as new teachers. This research used both qualitative and quantitative approaches to answer the research questions, which involved semi-structured interviews, document review and survey to collect the relevant data. Documents were reviewed by analysing lesson plans from three different countries. In addition, a review of lesson plans prepared by teachers and the standard syllabus were carried out. Findings from the document review were used in structured interviews using a teach-back technique, sorting and matrix of attribute-values. A questionnaire was then constructed based on the interviews and document review. Findings The findings of this initial study, as part of a larger research investigation, would help in knowledge modelling and representation. This will contribute to effective case retrieval via good design of the system input and output. The study identifies important elements of a lesson plan according to their ranking. Keywords that were used by teachers as input for retrieval were identified together with the expected output. Research limitations/implications The main goal of requirement elicitation is to specify complete and detailed requirements of the proposed system. There are two main types of requirement: functional and non-functional requirements. This paper only focuses on functional requirements – specifically case retrieval with appropriate input and output. Practical implications Various requirement engineering (RE) techniques can be applied in different phases of requirement elicitation. Suitable technique should be chosen at different phases of RE, as it is important for triangulation purposes. Incomplete RE will affect the modelling part of system development, and, thus, affect the design and implementation of an information system. Social implications Software engineer or anybody involved in system development should plan accordingly for the RE process. They should be creative and reasonable in selecting suitable RE techniques to be applied. Originality/value This study aims to gain understanding of the various aspects of lesson planning. Crucial knowledge in lesson planning that was gathered from the elicitation phase is modelled to have a good understanding of the problems and constraints among teachers. The findings of this initial study, as part of a larger research investigation, would help in knowledge modelling and representation. This will contribute to effective case retrieval via a good design of the system input and output.

A Review And Comparison Of The Traditional Collaborative And Online Collaborative Techniques For Requirement Elicitation

Requirement elicitation is one of the major phases of the software development life cycle. As per authors knowledge, among many reviews, there is no review available on a comparison between Online Collaborative Requirement Engineering (OCRE) and Traditional Collaborative Requirement Engineering (TCRE) techniques. In this review paper, OCRE and TCRE techniques are reviewed in terms of research methods employed in the related research. In addition, the techniques are compared in terms of software tools used in elicitation of the requirements and the types of software developed by using these techniques. The advantages and disadvantages mentioned in the literature are also highlighted in this research. The relevant papers were selected in a systematic way and data is extracted into the Excel files for analysis. The results revealed some interesting findings like the most important techniques in both OCRE and TCRE are literature review followed by experimentation.

Implementation of Requirement Engineering in Extreme Programing and SCRUM

Requirement Engineering is an essential process during software product development, it become more important when requirement is changing rapidly throughout the development process. In traditional development strategies requirements are kept initially and referenced by different stakeholders in later stage of development according to their use but this job is become toughest when requirements are volatile. In this article we studied about Agile Development Methodologies and strive to seek the relation with Requirement Engineering Techniques which are strongly rely on the concept of “No Change in Requirement” after Requirement Analysis phase and try to implement RE in Agile Software development process like XP and SCRUM.

Using Goals and Indicators for Activity-based Process Integration in Healthcare

The importance and usefulness of requirements engineering (RE) techniques (elicitation, analysis, modeling, change management, etc.) have been proven oftentimes in domains such as telecommunications and cybersystems. However, in healthcare, such practices, beyond elicitation, are immature. The introduction of changes to existing healthcare processes or e-systems often fails because users’ needs and operational/organizational goals may not get satisfied. In addition, healthcare is moving toward a value-based paradigm that requires a comprehensive evaluation and re-engineering of current processes, which puts more pressure on healthcare professionals to apply advanced RE techniques, such as goal and process modeling, in order to obtain much desired results effectively. In this paper, we discuss the integration of new technology-depending processes, e.g., that come with off-the-shelf solutions, with existing healthcare processes. We propose the use of an Activity-based Process Integration (AbPI) framework to investigate the impact of each potential integration on the organizational goals and user satisfaction. Performance indicators are used to reason about measurable quantities beyond goal satisfaction. The paper implements the AbPI approach with the User Requirement Notation standard and illustrates its feasibility with a real example related to wait time indication in an emergency room. Important research challenges are identified along the way.

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.