Determining Stakeholder Needs in the Workplace: How Mobile Technologies Can Help

Mobile technologies offer exciting new opportunities to improve important requirements processes. However, providing usable, useful mobile requirements engineering (RE) tools is challenging due to mobile devices' limitations and limited knowledge on successfully using mobile RE tools in the field. You can use the reported lessons learned as an initial guide to develop and use mobile RE tools successfully. We believe that mobile RE tools will complement rather than replace traditional approaches, and the combination of context-aware and conventional elicitation and negotiation approaches has the potential to improve the quality of requirements. Evaluation studies also revealed several issues, including biases arising from the limited information available on mobile devices; integrated training, process guidance, and tool support for analysts; and guidance for end users to discover and document their own requirements. Further work in the mobile RE field is needed to address these issues. Mobile RE tools help elicit stakeholder heeds in the workplace. The authors discuss lessons learned that practitioners can adopt and use in their work     

Empirical research methodologies and studies in Requirements Engineering: How far did we come?

Since the inception of the RE conference series (1992), both researchers and practitioners in the RE community have acknowledged the significance of empirical evaluation as an instrument to gain knowledge about various aspects of RE phenomena and the validity of our research results. A significant number of empirical studies have been conducted in the search for knowledge about RE problems as well as evidence of successful and less successful application of proposed solutions. This editorial presents the progress empirical RE research has made since 1992. Based on a search in the Scopus digital library, we report from an analysis of peer-reviewed systematic literature reviews and mapping studies to showcase major areas of RE research that use methods from the Empirical Software Engineering paradigm. We summarize prior empirical research in RE and introduce the contributors to this special issue on empirical research methodologies and studies in RE.     

Evaluating the generalizability of the Organizational Constraints Analysis framework: a hospital bed management case study

Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) provides useful tools for analyzing and modeling work constraints that can inform the development of systems design requirements. However, it does not provide effective tools for analyzing and modeling organizational constraints that can inform the development of organizational design requirements. By integrating organizational theories with the CWA approach, we developed the Organizational Constraints Analysis framework, a formative approach to the analysis, modeling, and design of the organization of work. In this paper, we test the generalizability of the framework by using its two analytical templates—the Organizational Constraints model and Work Possibilities diagram—to analyze the hospital bed management work domain. The research findings suggest that the concepts, investigative probes, and notations from the analytical templates can be applied to complex work domains beyond those in which it was initially developed. We conclude with suggestions for how the Organizational Constraints Analysis framework can complement CWA methods by helping researchers and practitioners develop a broader organizational perspective on the constraints that drive how work can be done in organizations.     

A comparative study of software tools for user story management

ContextUser stories have become widely accepted in agile software development. Consequently, a great number of software tools that provide, inter alia, support for practices based on user stories have emerged in recent years. These tools may have different features and focus in terms of support for agile requirements engineering (RE) concepts and practices.ObjectiveThe present study aims to provide a deep insight into the current capabilities and future trends of software support for agile RE practices based on user stories.MethodA comparative qualitative study of a set of agile software tools has been conducted according to the following criteria: coverage of the key functional requirements, support for basic agile RE concepts and practices, and user satisfaction with the tool. The criteria for tool selection were: diversity of software tools, high rating on the user-stories community Web site (http://www.userstories.com), and availability for review.ResultsThe results show a generally good coverage of key functional requirements related to management of user stories and epics, high-level release planning and low-level iteration planning. On the other hand, user-role modeling and persona support have not been addressed at all, and it has been found that requirements for acceptance testing support were completely covered by only one tool. More importantly, the study has revealed significant differences in the way different tools support agile RE concepts and practices (if at all). Finally, qualitative analysis of user reviews has demonstrated that practitioners prefer tools that are easy to set up, easy to learn, easy to use, and easy to customize, over more sophisticated but simultaneously more demanding tools.ConclusionAlthough the progress that has been made since the inception of these tools is quite clear, there is still room for improvements in terms of support for various agile RE practices within a specific agile process.     

Bayesian networks for enhancement of requirements engineering: a literature review

Requirements analysis is the software engineering stage that is closest to the users’ world. It also involves tasks that are knowledge intensive. Thus, the use of Bayesian networks (BNs) to model this knowledge would be a valuable aid. These probabilistic models could manage the imprecision and ambiguities usually present in requirements engineering (RE). In this work, we conduct a literature review focusing on where and how BNs are applied on subareas of RE in order to identify which gaps remain uncovered and which methods might engineers employ to incorporate this intelligent technique into their own requirements processes. The scarcity of identified studies (there are only 20) suggests that not all RE areas have been properly investigated in the literature. The evidence available for adopting BNs into RE is sufficiently mature yet the methods applied are not easily translatable to other topics. Nonetheless, there are enough studies supporting the applicability of synergistic cooperation between RE and BNs. This work provides a background for understanding the current state of research encompassing RE and BNs. Functional, non-functional and -ilities requirements artifacts are enhanced by the use of BNs. These models were obtained by interacting with experts or by learning from databases. The most common criticism from the point of view of BN experts is that the models lack validation, whereas requirements engineers point to the lack of a clear application method for BNs and the lack of tools for incorporating them as built-in help functions.     

Requirements Engineering and Technology Transfer: Obstacles, Incentives and Improvement Agenda

For many years, research results in requirements engineering (RE) have been developed without much interaction with, or impact on, industrial practice. Why is it so difficult to introduce RE research results into mainstream RE practice? This paper attempts to provide answers to this question by describing obstacles that researchers and practitioners have encountered when they attempted technology transfer. In addition, major incentives for using RE methods are discussed, along with ideas for improving current RE practice. The paper summarises, clarifies and extends the results of two panel discussions, one at the Twelfth Conference on Advanced information Systems Engineering (CAiSE’00) and the other at the Fourth IEEE Conference on Requirements Engineering (ICRE’00).     

Development of user-satisfaction-based knowledge management performance measurement system with evidential reasoning approach

Confronting fierce global competition, organizations have implemented knowledge management to enhance competitive advantages. With increasing investments in resources for knowledge management implementation in many organizations, measuring knowledge management performance has become an important agenda among researchers and practitioners. However, the current knowledge management performance measurement methods cannot truly report the results of organizations’ knowledge management efforts. To address this problem, there is a need of a better approach for measuring knowledge management performance in organizations. This paper presents the authors’ recent research in using a K-user satisfaction based approach and evidential reasoning methodology to develop a user-satisfaction-based knowledge management performance measurement system for organizations to identify strengths and weaknesses, as well as enhance continuous learning. A case study in applying the developed system and methodology in primary school education has been conducted to demonstrate its effectiveness.     

A family of standards for software and systems product lines

There is a drastic rise and evolution of Software and Systems Product Lines (SSPL) as a potential solution to deliver quality software products in a shorter time and with less effort. This has led to a plethora of diversified tools across the entire life cycle of SSPL, making it difficult for product line organizations to select the right set of tools for product line realization and tool vendors to develop interoperable tools. In this paper, we motivate the need for standardization of tools and methods for SSPL. The ISO/IEC JTC1/SC7 (Software and Systems Engineering) of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has proposed a set of interrelated standards in the area of SSPL to cater to the emerging demands of software and systems industry. We present the foundation of SSPL family of standards that are driven by market needs and discuss the core patterns and processes of SSPL. We then present an overview of ISO/IEC 26550, which is the reference model for SSPL family of standards and provide examples from current and ongoing standards. We highlight a few examples of industry adoption of SSPL and standards and emphasize the need for further research for standards in SSPL. We see this paper as a first step to bring standards knowledge into the academic world in the field of SSPL.     

GARUSO: a gamification approach for involving stakeholders outside organizational reach in requirements engineering

Stakeholder participation is a key success factor of Requirements Engineering (RE). Typically, the techniques used for identifying and involving stakeholders in RE assume that stakeholders can be identified among the members of the organizations involved when a software system is ordered, developed or maintained—and that these stakeholders can be told or even mandated to contribute. However, these assumptions no longer hold for many of today’s software systems where significant stakeholders (in particular, end-users and people affected by a system) are outside organizational reach: They are neither known nor can they easily be identified in the involved organizations nor can they be told to participate in RE activities. We have developed the GARUSO approach to address this problem. It uses a strategy for identifying stakeholders outside organizational reach and a social media platform that applies gamification for motivating these stakeholders to participate in RE activities. In this article, we describe the GARUSO approach and report on its empirical evaluation. We found that the identification strategy attracted a crowd of stakeholders outside organizational reach to the GARUSO platform and motivated them to participate voluntarily in collaborative RE activities. From our findings, we derived a first set of design principles on how to involve stakeholders outside organizational reach in RE. Our work expands the body of knowledge on crowd RE regarding stakeholders outside organizational reach.

     

Security practitioners in context: Their activities and interactions with other stakeholders within organizations

This study investigates the context of interactions of information technology (IT) security practitioners, based on a qualitative analysis of 30 interviews and participatory observation. We identify nine different activities that require interactions between security practitioners and other stakeholders, and describe in detail two of these activities that may serve as useful references for security-tool usability scenarios. We propose a model of the factors contributing to the complexity of interactions between security practitioners and other stakeholders, and discuss how this complexity is a potential source of security issues that increase the risk level within organizations. Our analysis also reveals that the tools used by our participants to perform their security tasks provide insufficient support for the complex, collaborative interactions that their duties involve. We offer several recommendations for addressing this complexity and improving IT security tools.     

The role of distances in requirements communication: a case study

Requirements communication plays a vital role in development projects in coordinating the customers, the business roles and the software engineers. Communication gaps represent a significant source of project failures and overruns. For example, misunderstood or uncommunicated requirements can lead to software that does not meet the customers’ requirements, and subsequent low number of sales or additional cost required to redo the implementation. We propose that requirements engineering (RE) distance measures are useful for locating gaps in requirements communication and for improving on development practice. In this paper, we present a case study of one software development project to evaluate this proposition. Thirteen RE distances were measured including geographical and cognitive distances between project members, and semantic distances between requirements and testing artefacts. The findings confirm that RE distances impact requirements communication and project coordination. Furthermore, the concept of distances was found to enable constructive group reflection on communication gaps and improvements to development practices. The insights reported in this paper can provide practitioners with an increased awareness of distances and their impact. Furthermore, the results provide a stepping stone for further research into RE distances and methods for improving on software development processes and practices.

     

Semantic business process space for intelligent management of sales order business processes

A company??s competitiveness relies heavily on its business processes and accurate knowledge to execute its business processes with agility and efficiency. Business Process Management (BPM) initially promised to provide the business world with suitable tools and techniques for successful BPM without help from the IT world. However, the current practice of BPM has several fundamental problems, including difficulty with automatic discovery and the integration of business processes across organizations. Understanding that the main cause of these problems lies in the lack of semantics on business process, we first define a variety of business process ontologies in order to build a semantic business process space (SBPS) for the limited area of sales order. We then explain how the SBPS satisfies the requirements for successful implementation of semantic BPM (SBPM) and demonstrate with a scenario how SBPM can be realized in the environment of SBPS. Our novel approach will reduce the time and cost necessary for the development of a new business process in a fast-changing environment and provide practitioners with useful insights into the proper implementation of the SBPM. Although our paper defines semantic business process knowledge for only a limited domain, its insights can be readily extended to other areas of business.     

软件需求工程-方法及工具评述

文中从需求工程的基本概念和研究内容出发,简单介绍了需求工程生命周期和需求规范等概念;比较全面地总结了现有的有代表笥的需求工程开发方法和工具,对其中一些重要的方法及工具作了分类和评述,并指出了需求工程方法和工具开发与实际领域相脱离等不足之处;最后探讨了需求工程研究现状中存在的一些主要问题及一些相应的解决方案。     

软件需求工程——方法及工具

文中从需求工程的基本概念和研究内容出发,简单介绍了需求工程生命周期和需求规范等概念;比较全面地总结了现有的有代表性的需求工程开发方法和工具,对其中一些重要的方法及工具作了分类和评述.     

A case study on consistency management of business and IT process models in banking

Organizations that adopt process modeling often maintain several co-existing models of the same business process. These models target different abstraction levels and stakeholder perspectives. Maintaining consistency among these models has become a major challenge for such organizations. Although several academic works have discussed this challenge, little empirical investigation exists on how people perform process model consistency management in practice. This paper aims to address this lack by presenting an in-depth empirical study of a business-driven engineering process deployed at a large company in the banking sector. We analyzed more than 70 business process models developed by the company, including their change history, with over 1,000 change requests. We also interviewed 9 business and IT practitioners and surveyed 23 such practitioners to understand concrete difficulties in consistency management, the rationales for the specification-to-implementation refinements found in the models, strategies that the practitioners use to detect and fix inconsistencies, and how tools could help with these tasks. Our contribution is a set of eight empirical findings, some of which confirm or contradict previous works on process model consistency management found in the literature. The findings provide empirical evidence of (1) how business process models are created and maintained, including a set of recurrent patterns used to refine business-level process specifications into IT-level models; (2) what types of inconsistencies occur; how they are introduced; and what problems they cause; and (3) what stakeholders expect from tools to support consistency management.     

Field study on requirements engineering: Investigation of artefacts, project parameters, and execution strategies

Context

Requirements Engineering (RE) is a critical discipline mostly driven by uncertainty, since it is influenced by the customer domain or by the development process model used. Volatile project environments restrict the choice of methods and the decision about which artefacts to produce in RE.

Objective

We aim to investigate RE processes in successful project environments to discover characteristics and strategies that allow us to elaborate RE tailoring approaches in the future.

Method

We perform a field study on a set of projects at one company. First, we investigate by content analysis which RE artefacts were produced in each project and to what extent they were produced. Second, we perform qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews to discover project parameters that relate to the produced artefacts. Third, we use cluster analysis to infer artefact patterns and probable RE execution strategies, which are the responses to specific project parameters. Fourth, we investigate by statistical tests the effort spent in each strategy in relation to the effort spent in change requests to evaluate the efficiency of execution strategies.

Results

We identified three artefact patterns and corresponding execution strategies. Each strategy covers different project parameters that impact the creation of certain artefacts. The effort analysis shows that the strategies have no significant differences in their effort and efficiency.

Conclusions

In contrast to our initial assumption that an increased effort in requirements engineering lowers the probability of change requests or project failures in general, our results show no statistically significant difference between the efficiency of the strategies. In addition, it turned out that many parameters considered as the main causes for project failures can be successfully handled. Hence, practitioners can apply the artefact patterns and related project parameters to tailor the RE process according to individual project characteristics.     

Spatio-temporal facility utilization analysis from exhaustive WiFi monitoring

The optimization of logistics in large building complexes with many resources, such as hospitals, require realistic facility management and planning. Current planning practices rely foremost on manual observations or coarse unverified assumptions and therefore do not properly scale or provide realistic data to inform facility planning. In this paper, we propose analysis methods to extract knowledge from large sets of network collected WiFi traces to better inform facility management and planning in large building complexes. The analysis methods, which build on a rich set of temporal and spatial features, include methods for quantification of area densities, as well as flows between specified locations, buildings or departments, classified according to the feature set. Spatio-temporal visualization tools built on top of these methods enable planners to inspect and explore extracted information to inform facility-planning activities. To evaluate the proposed methods and visualization tools, we present facility utilization analysis results for a large hospital complex covering more than 10 hectares. The evaluation is based on WiFi traces collected in the hospital’s WiFi infrastructure over two weeks observing around 18000 different devices recording more than a billion individual WiFi measurements. We highlight the tools’ ability to deduce people’s presences and movements and how they can provide respective insights into the test-bed hospital by investigating utilization patterns globally as well as selectively, e.g. for different user roles, daytimes, spatial granularities or focus areas.     

农业智能系统的知识获取技术研究

作者及其团队长期针对农业领域的知识获取技术进行了系列性研究.阐述了运用智能引导、机器学习、数据挖掘、智能计算等技术的人工和自动/半自动的知识获取方法.这些方法能够有效地获取领域知识,发现隐含模式,进行知识精化.研发了知识获取工具.这些方法和工具反映了知识获取技术对农业信息工程所起的重要作用.     

Practitioner Tools and Workstyles for User-Interface Design

Many studies have analyzed general software development practices and how organizations can better support them. However, literature that qualitatively studies user-interface-related work practices in software development is relatively rare. Supporting workstyle transitions in UI practices is nonetheless important. A survey of 370 practitioners about their workstyles and tool use offers concrete examples of design tools that support the most important workstyle transitions. The survey also resulted in recommendations for making design tools more human-centric and appealing to practitioners interested in the UI aspects of software development