Replication of an experiment on linguistic tool support for consolidation of requirements from multiple sources

Large market-driven software companies continuously receive large numbers of requirements and change requests from multiple sources. The task of analyzing those requests against each other and against already analyzed or implemented functionality then recording similarities between them, also called the requirements consolidation task, may be challenging and time consuming. This paper presents a replicated experiment designed to further investigate the linguistic tool support for the requirements consolidation task. In this replication study, 45 subjects, working in pairs on the same set of requirements as in the original study, were assigned to use two methods for the requirements consolidation: (1) lexical similarity and (2) searching and filtering. The results show that the linguistic method used in this experiment is not more efficient in consolidating requirements than the searching and filtering method, which contradicts the findings of the original study. However, we confirm the previous results that the assisted method (lexical similarity) can deliver more correct links and miss fewer links than the manual method (searching and filtering).     

The agile requirements refinery: Applying SCRUM principles to software product management

Context

Although agile software development methods such as SCRUM and DSDM are gaining popularity, the consequences of applying agile principles to software product management have received little attention until now.

Objective

In this paper, this gap is filled by the introduction of a method for the application of SCRUM principles to software product management.

Method

A case study research approach is employed to describe and evaluate this method.

Results

This has resulted in the ‘agile requirements refinery’, an extension to the SCRUM process that enables product managers to cope with complex requirements in an agile development environment. A case study is presented to illustrate how agile methods can be applied to software product management.

Conclusions

The experiences of the case study company are provided as a set of lessons learned that will help others to apply agile principles to their software product management process.     

Applications of linguistic techniques for use case analysis

Use cases are effective techniques to express the functional requirements of a system in a very simple and easy-to-learn way. Use cases are mainly composed of natural language (NL) sentences, and the use of NL to describe the behaviour of a system is always a critical point, due to the inherent ambiguities originating from the different possible interpretations of NL sentences. We discuss in this paper the application of analysis techniques based on a linguistic approach to detect, within requirements documents, defects related to such an inherent ambiguity. Starting from the proposed analysis techniques, we will define some metrics that will be used to perform a quality evaluation of requirements documents. Some available automatic tools supporting the linguistic analysis of NL requirements have been used to evaluate an industrial use cases document according to the defined metrics. A discussion on the application of linguistic analysis techniques to support the semantic analysis of use cases is also reported.     

Software product line scoping and requirements engineering in a small and medium-sized enterprise: An industrial case study

Software product line (SPL) engineering has been applied in several domains, especially in large-scale software development. Given the benefits experienced and reported, SPL engineering has increasingly garnered interest from small to medium-sized companies. It is possible to find a wide range of studies reporting on the challenges of running a SPL project in large companies. However, very little reports exist that consider the situation for small to medium-sized enterprises and these studies try develop universal truths for SPL without lessons learned from empirical evidence need to be contextualized. This study is a step towards bridging this gap in contextual evidence by characterizing the weaknesses discovered in the scoping (SC) and requirements (RE) disciplines of SPL. Moreover, in this study we conducted a case study in a small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to justify the use of agile methods when introducing the SPL SC and RE disciplines through the characterization of their bottlenecks. The results of the characterization indicated that ineffective communication and collaboration, long iteration cycles, and the absence of adaptability and flexibility can increase the effort and reduce motivation during project development. These issues can be mitigated by agile methods.     

Advanced product planning: a comprehensive process for systemic definition of new product requirements

This paper reports results of research into the definition of requirements for new consumer products––specifically, electro-mechanical products. The research dealt with the derivation of design requirements that are demonstrably aligned with stakeholder needs. The paper describes a comprehensive process that can enable product development teams to deal with statements of product requirements, as originally collected through market research activities, in a systematic and traceable manner from the early, fuzzy front end, stages of the design process. The process described has been based on principles of systems engineering. A case study from its application and evaluation drawn from the power sector is described in this paper. The case study demonstrates how the process can significantly improve product quality planning practices through revision of captured product requirements, analysis of stakeholder requirements and derivation of design requirements. The paper discusses benefits and issues from the use of the process by product development teams, and identifies areas for further research. Finally, the conclusions drawn from the reported research are presented.

Process fusion: An industrial case study on agile software product line engineering

This paper presents a case study of a software product company that has successfully integrated practices from software product line engineering and agile software development. We show how practices from the two fields support the company’s strategic and tactical ambitions, respectively. We also discuss how the company integrates strategic, tactical and operational processes to optimize collaboration and consequently improve its ability to meet market needs, opportunities and challenges. The findings from this study are relevant to software product companies seeking ways to balance agility and product management. The findings also contribute to research on industrializing software engineering.     

Managing requirements specifications for product lines - An approach and industry case study

Software product line development has emerged as a leading approach for software reuse. This paper describes an approach to manage natural-language requirements specifications in a software product line context. Variability in such product line specifications is modeled and managed using a feature model. The proposed approach has been introduced in the Swedish defense industry. We present a multiple-case study covering two different product lines with in total eight product instances. These were compared to experiences from previous projects in the organization employing clone-and-own reuse. We conclude that the proposed product line approach performs better than clone-and-own reuse of requirements specifications in this particular industrial context.     

Requirements communication and balancing in large-scale software-intensive product development

ContextSeveral industries developing products on a large-scale are facing major challenges as their products are becoming more and more software-intensive. Whereas software was once considered a detail to be bundled, it has since become an intricate and interdependent part of most products. The advancement of software increases the uncertainty and the interdependencies between development tasks and artifacts. A key success factor is good requirements engineering (RE), and in particular, the challenges of effectively and efficiently coordinating and communicating requirements.ObjectiveIn this work we present a lightweight RE framework and demonstrate and evaluate its industrial applicability in response to the needs of a Swedish automotive company for improving specific problems in inter-departmental requirements coordination and communication in large-scale development of software-intensive systems.MethodA case study approach and a dynamic validation were used to develop and evaluate the framework in close collaboration with our industrial partner, involving three real-life cases in an ongoing car project. Experience and feedback were collected through observations when applying the framework and from 10 senior industry professionals in a questionnaire and in-depth follow-up interviews.ResultsThe experience and feedback about using the framework revealed that it is relevant and applicable for the industry as well as a useful and efficient way to resolve real problems in coordinating and communicating requirements identified at the case company. However, other concerns, such as accessibility to necessary resources and competences in the early development phases, were identified when using the method, which allowed for earlier pre-emptive action to be taken.ConclusionOverall, the experience from using the framework and the positive feedback from industry professionals indicated a feasible framework that is applicable in the industry for improving problems related to coordination and communication of requirements. Based on the promising results, our industrial partner has decided upon further validations of the framework in a large-scale pilot program.     

Managing requirements conflicts in software product lines: A goal and scenario based approach

The product line approach is recognized as a successful approach to reuse in software development. However, in many cases, it has resulted in interactions between requirements and/or features. Interaction detection, especially conflict detection between requirements has become more challenging. Thus, detecting conflicts between requirements is essential for successful product line development. Formal methods have been proposed to address this problem, however, they are hard to understand by non-experts and are limited to restricted domains. In addition, there is no overall process that covers all the steps for managing conflicts. We propose an approach for systematically identifying and managing requirements conflicts, which is based on requirements partition in natural language and supported by a tool. To demonstrate its feasibility, the proposed approach has been applied to the home integration system (HIS) domain and the results are discussed.     

An ontology-based support for product conceptual design

The research presented in this paper is a follow-up of our prior work involving the development of a graphical modeling tool to support designers at the conceptual design stage. To close the loop for supporting designers in generating design concepts flexibly, fast, and easily, an ontology-based approach for knowledge management that works along with the graphical modeling tool is discussed. Ontology and databases for the tool are developed to promote the systematic capture of design knowledge and efficient reuse of the design knowledge selection. In order to locate the proper information and query the data from the databases, the relationship between the ontology and databases, the data analysis process, ontology enrichment, and the ontology-based query engine are built to offer users multiple design results according to users’ requirements. A tire design example is presented to demonstrate the proposed approach. The ontology-based method described in this paper can help retrieve and save the complex relations, support the reasoning, integrate heterogeneous data resources and offer users more accurate, proper and comprehensive data.     

Decision support for moving from a single product to a product portfolio in evolving software systems

Successful software systems continuously evolve to accommodate ever-changing needs of customers. Accommodating the feature requests of all the customers in a single product increases the risks and costs of software maintenance. A possible approach to mitigate these risks is to transition the evolving software system (ESS) from a single system to a portfolio of related product variants, each addressing a specific customers’ segment. This evolution should be conducted such that the extent of modifications required in ESS's structure is reduced. The proposed method COPE+ uses preferences of customers on product features to generate multiple product portfolios each containing one product variant per segment of customers. Recommendations are given to the decision maker to update the product portfolios based on structural analysis of ESS. Product portfolios are compared with the ESS using statechart representations to identify the level of similarity in their behaviors. A proof of concept is presented by application to an open-source text editing system. Structural and behavioral analysis of candidate portfolios helped the decision maker to select one portfolio out of three candidates.     

基于信息特征的需求开发与管理研究

如何荻取用户的真正需求是需求工程的难点.需求工程是创造性的高层次知识活动,根据知识等级层次,信息最接近于事实且涉及专业知识最少.以信息方式交流需求具有容易理解的优势,便于减少和消除人们因知识背景不同而产生的交流困难.应用信息特征探讨了几点有效提高需求开发与管理效率的对策.     

An exploratory study of architectural effects on requirements decisions

The question of the “manner in which an existing software architecture affects requirements decision-making” is considered important in the research community; however, to our knowledge, this issue has not been scientifically explored. We do not know, for example, the characteristics of such architectural effects. This paper describes an exploratory study on this question. Specific types of architectural effects on requirements decisions are identified, as are different aspects of the architecture together with the extent of their effects. This paper gives quantitative measures and qualitative interpretation of the findings. The understanding gained from this study has several implications in the areas of: project planning and risk management, requirements engineering (RE) and software architecture (SA) technology, architecture evolution, tighter integration of RE and SA processes, and middleware in architectures. Furthermore, we describe several new hypotheses that have emerged from this study, that provide grounds for future empirical work. This study involved six RE teams (of university students), whose task was to elicit new requirements for upgrading a pre-existing banking software infrastructure. The data collected was based on a new meta-model for requirements decisions, which is a bi-product of this study.     

An empirical study on the implementation and evaluation of a goal-driven software development risk management model

ContextBuilding a quality software product in the shortest possible time to satisfy the global market demand gives an enterprise a competitive advantage. However, uncertainties and risks exist at every stage of a software development project. These can have an extremely high influence on the success of the final software product. Early risk management practice is effective to manage such risks and contributes effectively towards the project success.ObjectiveDespite risk management approaches, a detailed guideline that explains where to integrate risk management activities into the project is still missing. Little effort has been directed towards the evaluation of the overall impact of a risk management method. We present a Goal-driven Software Development Risk Management Model (GSRM) and its explicit integration into the requirements engineering phase and an empirical investigation result of applying GSRM into a project.MethodWe combine the case study method with action research so that the results from the case study directly contribute to manage the studied project risks and to identify ways to improve the proposed methodology. The data is collected from multiple sources and analysed both in a qualitative and quantitative way.ResultsWhen risk factors are beyond the control of the project manager and project environment, it is difficult to control these risks. The project scope affects all the dimensions of risk. GSRM is a reasonable risk management method that can be employed in an industrial context. The study results have been compared against other study results in order to generalise findings and identify contextual factors.ConclusionA formal early stage risk management practice provides early warning related to the problems that exists in a project, and it contributes to the overall project success. It is not necessary to always consider budget and schedule constraints as top priority. There exist issues such as requirements, change management, and user satisfaction which can influence these constraints.     

Analyzing evolution of variability in a software product line: From contexts and requirements to features

Context

In the long run, features of a software product line (SPL) evolve with respect to changes in stakeholder requirements and system contexts. Neither domain engineering nor requirements engineering handles such co-evolution of requirements and contexts explicitly, making it especially hard to reason about the impact of co-changes in complex scenarios.

Objective

In this paper, we propose a problem-oriented and value-based analysis method for variability evolution analysis. The method takes into account both kinds of changes (requirements and contexts) during the life of an evolving software product line.

Method

The proposed method extends the core requirements engineering ontology with the notions to represent variability-intensive problem decomposition and evolution. On the basis of problemorientation, the analysis method identifies candidate changes, detects influenced features, and evaluates their contributions to the value of the SPL.

Results and Conclusion

The process of applying the analysis method is illustrated using a concrete case study of an evolving enterprise software system, which has confirmed that tracing back to requirements and contextual changes is an effective way to understand the evolution of variability in the software product line.     

Empirical evaluation of a decision support model for adopting software product line engineering

ContextThe software product line engineering (SPLE) community has provided several different approaches for assessing the feasibility of SPLE adoption and selecting transition strategies. These approaches usually include many rules and guidelines which are very often implicit or scattered over different publications. Hence, for the practitioners it is not always easy to select and use these rules to support the decision making process. Even in case the rules are known, the lack of automated support for storing and executing the rules seriously impedes the decision making process.ObjectiveWe aim to evaluate the impact of a decision support system (DSS) on decision-making in SPLE adoption. In alignment with this goal, we provide a decision support model (DSM) and the corresponding DSS.MethodFirst, we apply a systematic literature review (SLR) on the existing primary studies that discuss and present approaches for analyzing the feasibility of SPLE adoption and transition strategies. Second, based on the data extraction and synthesis activities of the SLR, the required questions and rules are derived and implemented in the DSS. Third, for validation of the approach we conduct multiple case studies.ResultsIn the course of the SLR, 31 primary studies were identified from which we could construct 25 aspects, 39 questions and 312 rules. We have developed the DSS tool Transit-PL that embodies these elements.ConclusionsThe multiple case study validation showed that the adoption of the developed DSS tool is justified to support the decision making process in SPLE adoption.     

A model-driven approach for the derivation of architectural requirements of software product lines

The alignment of the software architecture and the functional requirements of a system is a demanding task because of the difficulty in tracing design elements to requirements. The four-step rule set (4SRS) is a unified modeling language (UML)-based model-driven method for single system development which provides support to the software architect in this task. This paper presents an evolution of the 4SRS method aimed at software product lines. In particular, we describe how to address the transformation of functional requirements (use cases) into component-based requirements for the product line architecture. The result is a UML-based model-driven method that can be applied in combination with metamodeling tools such as the eclipse modeling framework (EMF) to derive the architecture of software product lines. We present our approach in a practical way and illustrate it with an example. We also discuss how our proposals are related to the work of other authors.     

An instrument for measuring the success of the requirements engineering process in information systems development

There exists a strong motivation for evaluating, understanding, and improving requirements engineering practices given that a successful requirements engineering process is necessary for a successful software system. Measuring requirements engineering success is central to evaluation, understanding, and improving these practices. In this paper, a research study whose objective was to develop an instrument to measure the success of the requirements engineering process is described. The domain of this study is developing customer-specific business information systems. The main result is a subjective instrument for measuring requirements engineering success. The instrument consists of 32 indicators that cover the two most important dimensions of requirements engineering success. These two dimensions were identified during the study to be: quality of requirements engineering products and quality of requirements engineering service. Evidence is presented demonstrating that the instrument has desirable psychometric properties, such as high reliability and good validity.This paper is a longer and more detailed version of the study reported in El Emam and Madhavji (1995).This work was supported in part by the IT Macroscope Project and NSERC Canada.     

Investigation of requirements documents written in natural language

This paper presents the results of an investigation of natural language specifications created in industrial projects in Germany. One goal of the investigation was to gain an insight into the state of the practice. The objects of the investigation were the requirements documents and the requirements processes. The following aspects were uppermost in my mind when examining the requirements documents: structure of the documents, kinds of information found in the documents, and notations used to express the information. When interviewing the system analysts, the following aspects were most important: usage of tools, change management, communication with the customers, and verification and validation of the documents.