Traditional Requirements Engineering Research Articles

Використання засобів штучного інтелекту в інженерії вимог: аналіз можливостей та чат-бот для валідації

This study investigates the processes and means of requirements engineering (RE) of software and complex information systems (SWS). The subject of this study is the instrumental means of SWS RE based on the methods of artificial (computational) intelligence (AI). The goal is to improve the accuracy and efficiency of CCD requirements development processes using AI tools by providing better communications between business teams and technical teams and automating complex requirements collection and documentation processes. The tasks are as follows: to analyze the principles and means of integrating AI tools into requirements engineering processes, the development and verification of which is a critical stage in the development of SWS; to determine the problems of using traditional SWS RE methods and perform their comparative analysis with AI-based methods; and to develop a chatbot architecture for requirements validation and identify characteristics of RE processes that are improved through its use. The results. The results of this study demonstrate that AI tools can significantly improve the accuracy, timeliness, and efficiency of requirements development processes and project team communication. An architecture and software solution for an intelligent chatbot for requirements validation is proposed, and the benefits and limitations of its application are discussed. Directions for further development and research regarding the end-to-end implementation of AI tools in IP processes have been developed.

Activities and Practices of Requirements Engineering in Agile Software Environments

Requirements are one of the important factors for software success. However, Requirements Engineering (RE) activities, in the Waterfall process model, are done sequentially in the analysis phase, which makes it difficult when RE practitioners think and reason about them in Agile Software Development (ASD) process model. RE practitioners need to find the established RE activities conventions in the ASD process model, especially with an increase of software companies, which transform to the ASD process model, in order to foster their transition to the new model. The objective of this study is to provide RE activities in ASD to allow RE practitioners to utilize the appropriate activity for specific ASD methodology. RE activities in ASD are handled repetitively and on a small scale, which makes them embedded in the development life cycle. This paper focuses on highlighting them in different ASD methodologies and discusses the practices that resolve the traditional Waterfall model issues. Although the ASD model has resolved some traditional RE issues, it introduced other issues, such as a consequence of trying to achieve an adequate balance between agility and stability. In addition, there is a lack of practices that target non-functional requirements.

Automatic Requirements Engineering: Activities, Methods, Tools, and Domains – A Systematic Literature Review

Requirements engineering (RE) is an initial activity in the software engineering process that involves many users. The involvement of various users in the RE process raises ambiguity and vagueness in requirements modeling. In addition, traditional RE is a time-consuming activity. Therefore various studies have been conducted to support process automation on RE. This paper conducts a systematic literature review (SLR) to obtain information about RE automation related to RE activities, methods/models, tools, and domains. SLR is done through 5 main stages: definition of research questions, conducting the search, screening for relevant papers, data extraction, mapping, and analysis. The data extraction and mapping are carried out on 155 relevant publications from 2016 to 2022. Based on the results from SLR, around 53% of the research focuses on RE automation in analysis and specifications, 40% focuses on elicitation, validation, and requirements management, and 7% focuses on requirements quality. NLP is the most used method in elicitation and specification, while for analysis, machine learning, NLP, and goal-oriented models are mostly used in automatic RE. Furthermore, many papers use specific models and methods for validation and requirements management. From the domain analysis results, it is obtained that more than half of the papers contribute directly to the RE domain, and some contribute to the development of RE automation in the software application domain. 

Special issue on just-in-time requirements engineering for software integration

Abstract This special issue tackles specific challenges of requirements engineering (RE) in agile and interconnected settings. Compared to traditional upfront RE, the practices in agile or open-source software projects tend to be just-in-time, characterized by lightweight representation and continuous refinement of requirements. The special issue features six articles, ranging from conceptual views through analytic reasonings to empirical studies. Altogether, the collection offers important and timely contributions toward advancing our understanding of RE in industrial information integration and Industry 4.0.

Crowd-Generated Data Mining for Continuous Requirements Elicitation

In software development projects, the process of requirements engineering (RE) is one in which requirements are elicited, analyzed, documented, and managed. Requirements are traditionally collected using manual approaches, including interviews, surveys, and workshops. Employing traditional RE methods to engage a large base of users has always been a challenge, especially when the process involves users beyond the organization’s reach. Furthermore, emerging software paradigms, such as mobile computing, social networks, and cloud computing, require better automated or semi-automated approaches for requirements elicitation because of the growth in systems users, the accessibility to crowd-generated data, and the rapid change of users’ requirements. This research proposes a methodology to capture and analyze crowd-generated data (e.g., user feedback and comments) to find potential requirements for a software system in use. It semi-automates some requirements-elicitation tasks using data retrieval and natural language processing (NLP) techniques to extract potential requirements. It supports requirements engineers’ efforts to gather potential requirements from crowd-generated data on social networks (e.g., Twitter). It is an assistive approach that taps into unused knowledge and experiences emphasizing continuous requirements elicitation during systems use.

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.

Refinement and resolution of just-in-time requirements in open source software and a closer look into non-functional requirements

Abstract Just-in-time (JIT) requirements are characterized as not following the traditional requirement engineering approach, instead focusing on elaboration when the implementation begins. In this experience report, which is an invited extension of a recently published work [1], we first analyze both functional and non-functional JIT requirements from three successful open source software (OSS) projects, including Firefox, Lucene, and Mylyn, to explore the common activities that shaped those requirements. We identify a novel refinement and resolution process that all studied requirements followed from their inception to complete realization and subsequent release. Noticing some interesting phenomena more specific to non-functional requirements (NFRs), we conduct a second study examining 50 NFRs from the aforementioned three subject systems. This study reveals a slightly different process followed in the refinement and resolution of NFRs. It also provides further evidence that NFR refinement and resolution activities focus more on implementation refinement rather than requirement elaboration in the studied systems. Our research provides new insights into how OSS project teams create quality features from simple initial descriptions of JIT requirements, uncovers activities more particular to JIT requirements engineering (RE) for NFRs, and opens new avenues for further research in the emerging JIT RE field.

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.

A Requirements Analysis Framework for Development of Service Oriented Systems

In Service Oriented Systems (SOS), implementation of business processes is accomplished through services in distributed, loosely coupled manner based on business process requirements of the users. Consequently, importance of businessprocess requirements analysis for development of SOS is strongly highlighted in both academia and industry. Usually, traditional requirements engineering is competent enough to specify and analysis business requirements for development of software systems efficiently. However, Service Oriented Requirement Engineering (SORE) emerging for SOS development is differed from traditional requirement engineering due to complex nature of services. Yet, a serious gap is still exist between early and detailed specification of business process requirements in SORE and further mapping towards design of SOS from set of business processes. To address this issue, in this paper, a requirements analysis framework is proposed for development of SOS systems. The contribution of the proposed work is formal representation of business process requirements for SOS based on business scenario and Cause-Effect-Dependency (CED) graph in dimensions of six aspects of services -- What, Why, How, Who, When and Where (5W1H). Both early and detailed level requirements analysis in the context of SORE is facilitated by the proposed approach. Beside, traceability of proposed approach towards design of business processes for development of SOS is also exhibited in this paper. Moreover, the practical utility of the proposed approach is demonstrated using a suitable case study.

Ontological Framework for Alignment of Web Services with Requirements in Service Oriented Requirement Engineering (SORE)

Service-oriented computing has been receiving significant importance in recent years. The main aim of service oriented development paradigm is to provide better alignment between business requirements and IT solutions. Despite several benefits, Service Oriented Architecture is facing a number of challenges i.e., Knowledge management, Semantic gaps between requirements etc.In Service Oriented Architecture, Requirements Engineering (RE) is one of the most significant activities for software development but still there are some challenges i.e., traditional requirement issues, user involvement, change in requirements, lack of domain knowledge etc. The aim of our work is to provide a mechanism which address the issue of traditional requirement engineering in service oriented architecture e.g., ambiguity, inconsistency and incorrectness of requirements, that are major causes of failure of projects. Ontology has been adopted as a solution for the improvement of requirement specification. In our thesis, we will provide ontology based solution for alignment of services and requirements.

A systematic literature review on quality criteria for agile requirements specifications

The quality of requirements is typically considered as an important factor for the quality of the end product. For traditional up-front requirements specifications, a number of standards have been defined on what constitutes good quality : Requirements should be complete, unambiguous, specific, time-bounded, consistent, etc. For agile requirements specifications, no new standards have been defined yet, and it is not clear yet whether traditional quality criteria still apply. To investigate what quality criteria for assessing the correctness of written agile requirements exist, we have conducted a systematic literature review. The review resulted in a list of 16 selected papers on this topic. These selected papers describe 28 different quality criteria for agile requirements specifications. We categorize and analyze these criteria and compare them with those from traditional requirements engineering. We discuss findings from the 16 papers in the form of recommendations for practitioners on quality assessment of agile requirements. At the same time, we indicate the open points in the form of a research agenda for researchers working on this topic .

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.

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.

Investigation of Adherence Degree of Agile Requirements Engineering Practices in Non-Agile Software Development Organizations

Requirements are critical for the success of software projects. Requirements are practically difficult to produce, as the hardest stage of building a software system is to decide what the system should do. Moreover, requirements errors are expensive to fix in the later phases of the software development life cycle. The rapidly changing business environment is highly challenging traditional Requirements Engineering (RE) practices. Most of the software development organizations are working in such dynamic environment, as a result, either by or without their awareness agile methodologies are adopted in various phases of their software development cycles. The aim of this paper is to investigate the adherence degree of agile RE practices in various software development organizations that are classifying themselves as adopting traditional (i.e. non-agile) software development methodologies. An approach is proposed for achieving this aim and it is applied on five different projects from four different organizations. The result shows that even the non-agile software development organizations are applying agile RE practices by different adherence degrees.

Using a grounded theory approach for exploring software product management challenges

The traditional requirements engineering (RE) research paradigm, along with most engineering research and practice, is commonly seen to belong to the philosophical tradition of positivism, which construes knowledge as accruing through the systematic observation of stable and knowable phenomena. Consequently, RE methods tend to ignore social issues. However, due to the dominant role of the human being in RE, there has been an increasing need to rely on research methods of the social sciences, arts, and humanities for RE related findings. This paper illustrates one example of how social aspects in RE have been explored with a research method adopted from social sciences research tradition. Drawing heavily on the research reported in the doctoral thesis of the principal author, we describe in this paper: (1) how a study using a grounded theory approach was designed and conducted for exploring market-driven requirements engineering (MDRE) challenges in seven companies, (2) how the analysis eventually proceeded toward a proposed theory, and (3) our experiences of using a grounded theory approach within the discipline of RE.

A Survey of Agile and Traditional Requirements Engineering

In the past few years, there has been an increasing awareness of the important role of requirements engineering (RE) in a project’s success, in both research and industry. Developing consistent requirements specifications that meet the customers’ needs, in traditional development, is likely to be infeasible. For one reason, customers do not usually have a clear picture of what they really want. Secondly, the business domain could be changing quickly, especially if it heavily depends on technologies. Agile software development (ASD), on the other hand, supports iterative and incremental development and emphasises customers’ involvement in the development process. We argue that adopting ASD in RE overcomes the limitations of the traditional development. ASD, however, is no silver bullet and its adoption comes at a price. This paper helps the reader to: (1) get a quick yet a comprehensive grasp of RE in traditional and ASD; (2) understand the synergies/commonalities between the two approaches in handling RE; (3) recognise the associated challenges of adopting ASD; and (4) identify the current prominent agile RE research areas.

Organizational routines, innovation, and flexibility: The application of narrative networks to dynamic workflow

ObjectiveThe purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how current visual representations of organizational and technological processes do not fully account for the variability present in everyday practices. We further demonstrate how narrative networks can augment these representations to indicate potential areas for successful or problematic adoption of new technologies and potential needs for additional training. MethodsWe conducted a qualitative study of the processes and routines at a major academic medical center slated to be supported by the development and installation of a new comprehensive HIT system. We used qualitative data collection techniques including observations of the activities to be supported by the new system and interviews with department heads, researchers, and both clinical and non-clinical staff. We conducted a narrative network analysis of these data by choosing exemplar processes to be modeled, selecting and analyzing narrative fragments, and developing visual representations of the interconnection of these narratives. ResultsNarrative networks enable us to view the variety of ways work has been and can be performed in practice, influencing our ability to design for innovation in use. DiscussionNarrative networks are a means for analyzing and visualizing organizational routines in concert with more traditional requirements engineering, workflow modeling, and quality improvement outcome measurement. This type of analysis can support a deeper and more nuanced understanding of how and why certain routines continue to exist, change, or stop entirely. At the same time, it can illuminate areas in which adoption may be slow, more training or communication may be needed, and routines preferred by the leadership are subverted by routines preferred by the staff.

Method Support of Information Requirements Analysis for Analytical Information Systems

Due to specific characteristics of analytical information systems, their development varies significantly from transaction-oriented systems. Specific method support is particularly needed for requirements engineering and its information-related component, information requirements analysis. The paper at hand first evaluates the state of the art and identifies necessary method support extensions. On this basis, method support requirements for information requirements engineering are identified. The survey is structured along the five core activities of traditional requirements engineering. It reveals a need for further research especially on information requirements elicitation, validation, and management. It further contributes to a discussion of aspects that should be considered by any method support. Due to comparatively long life cycles of analytical information systems, the introduction of a process perspective is discussed in order to ensure the continuous elicitation, documentation, and management of information requirements.

Agent-oriented analysis and modeling

Traditional requirements engineering (RE) are facing challenge. With the continuous change of application environment and software market, as well as the development of new design approaches (e.g. software architecture and component-based software engineering), RE should also move its eyes from product-oriented and function-centered view to problem-domain-oriented and structure-centered view. In this paper we proposed a new analysis and modeling approach : Agent-Oriented Approach (AOA). AOA is problem-domain-oriented and implementation-independent. It searches for a solution strategy for a families of problems rather than a special software requirements specification(SRS). It focuses on entities with active behavior in problem domain and pay attention to their interaction. It can describe parallel and distributed entities commonly existing in problem domains and it is more stable and reuseful than SRS.

4.2.2 System Engineering and KBS Development

AbstractThis paper discusses connection principles for methods and tools, between traditional Requirement Engineering and Problem Domain Analysis, in order to be able to manage every kind of requirement: functional, non functional, knowledge and rule based. This paper is based on studies carried out at NCS‐FRANCE, part of the Naval Combat Systems Group (NCS) of Thomson‐CSF.Thomson‐CSF has set up a common policy for System Engineering at the corporate level, which includes a method called MIST (“MŽthode d'IngŽnierie Systme Thomson‐CSF”), based on Draft MIL‐STD‐499B standard, and a tool which is RDD‐100TM. The additional work performed at Thomson‐CSF/NCS focuses on the analysis of operational requirements in the area of C3I systems. A Problem Domain Analysis approach appears to provide a promising solution. The method used by Thomson‐CSF/NCS in this area is KADS (Knowledge Analysis and Design Support), which is a conceptual modeling language stemming from European research projects. The tool which implements this method is OpenKADSTM.