Agile Requirements Engineering: A systematic literature review

Nowadays, Agile Software Development (ASD) is used to cope with increasing complexity in system development. Hybrid development models, with the integration of User-Centered Design (UCD), are applied with the aim to deliver competitive products with a suitable User Experience (UX). Therefore, stakeholder and user involvement during Requirements Engineering (RE) are essential in order to establish a collaborative environment with constant feedback loops. The aim of this study is to capture the current state of the art of the literature related to Agile RE with focus on stakeholder and user involvement. In particular, we investigate what approaches exist to involve stakeholder in the process, which methodologies are commonly used to present the user perspective and how requirements management is been carried out. We conduct a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) with an extensive quality assessment of the included studies. We identified 27 relevant papers. After analyzing them in detail, we derive deep insights to the following aspects of Agile RE: stakeholder and user involvement, data gathering, user perspective, integrated methodologies, shared understanding, artifacts, documentation and Non-Functional Requirements (NFR). Agile RE is a complex research field with cross-functional influences. This study will contribute to the software development body of knowledge by assessing the involvement of stakeholder and user in Agile RE, providing methodologies that make ASD more human-centric and giving an overview of requirements management in ASD.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2013-46928-C3-3-RMinisterio de Economía y Competitividad TIN2015-71938-RED

User-driven design of decision support systems for polycentric environmental resources management

Open and decentralized technologies such as the Internet provide increasing opportunities to create knowledge and deliver computer-based decision support for multiple types of users across scales. However, environmental decision support systems/tools (henceforth EDSS) are often strongly science-driven and assuming single types of decision makers, and hence poorly suited for more decentralized and polycentric decision making contexts. In such contexts, EDSS need to be tailored to meet diverse user requirements to ensure that it provides useful (relevant), usable (intuitive), and exchangeable (institutionally unobstructed) information for decision support for different types of actors. To address these issues, we present a participatory framework for designing EDSS that emphasizes a more complete understanding of the decision making structures and iterative design of the user interface. We illustrate the application of the framework through a case study within the context of water-stressed upstream/downstream communities in Lima, Peru

Exploring participatory design for SNS-based AEH systems

The rapidly emerging and growing social networking sites (SNS) offer an opportunity to improve adaptive e-learning experience by introducing a social dimension, connecting users within the system. Making connections and providing communication tools can engage students in creating effective learning environment and enriching learning experiences. Researchers have been working on introducing SNS features into adaptive educational hypermedia systems. The next stage research is centered on how to enhance SNS facilities of AEH systems, in order to engage students’ participation in collaborative learning and generating and enriching learning materials. Students are the core participants in the adaptive e-learning process, so it is essential for the system designers to consider students’ opinions. This paper aims at exploring how to apply participatory design methodology in the early stage of the SNS-based AEH system design process

Eliciting and specifying requirements for highly interactive systems using activity theory

The processes of eliciting user requirements and formalising these into specifications are critical for the success of highly interactive systems. These processes are still poorly understood, partly because current methods are usually ad hoc and lack any theoretical basis. A number of researchers have used Activity Theory (AT) to refine these processes and have met with some success. To date, this approach has been more useful explaining the processes post hoc. This positional paper proposes an AT method for requirement elicitation and specification definition. The method is sufficiently prescriptive and well formed that it does not require any detailed understanding of AT

Principles in Patterns (PiP) : Project Evaluation Synthesis

Evaluation activity found the technology-supported approach to curriculum design and approval developed by PiP to demonstrate high levels of user acceptance, promote improvements to the quality of curriculum designs, render more transparent and efficient aspects of the curriculum approval and quality monitoring process, demonstrate process efficacy and resolve a number of chronic information management difficulties which pervaded the previous state. The creation of a central repository of curriculum designs as the basis for their management as "knowledge assets", thus facilitating re-use and sharing of designs and exposure of tacit curriculum design practice, was also found to be highly advantageous. However, further process improvements remain possible and evidence of system resistance was found in some stakeholder groups. Recommendations arising from the findings and conclusions include the need to improve data collection surrounding the curriculum approval process so that the process and human impact of C-CAP can be monitored and observed. Strategies for improving C-CAP acceptance among the "late majority", the need for C-CAP best practice guidance, and suggested protocols on the knowledge management of curriculum designs are proposed. Opportunities for further process improvements in institutional curriculum approval, including a re-engineering of post-faculty approval processes, are also recommended

Goal-driven requirements analysis for hypermedia-intensive Web applications

Requirements analysis for Web applications still needs to employ effective RE practices to accommodate some distinctive aspects: capturing high-level communication goals, considering several user profiles, defining hypermedia-specific requirements, bridging the gap between requirements and Web design, and reusing requirements for an effective usability evaluation. Techniques should be usable, informal, require little training effort, and show relative advantage to project managers. On the basis of the i * framework, this paper presents a proposal for defining hypermedia requirements (concerning aspects such as content, interaction, navigation, and presentation) for Web applications. The model adopts a goal-driven approach coupled with scenario-based techniques, introduces a hypermedia requirement taxonomy to facilitate Web conceptual design, and paves the way for systematic usability evaluation. Particular attention is paid to the empirical validation of the model based on the perceived quality attributes theory. A case study developed with industrial partners is discusse

Living Innovation Laboratory Model Design and Implementation

Living Innovation Laboratory (LIL) is an open and recyclable way for multidisciplinary researchers to remote control resources and co-develop user centered projects. In the past few years, there were several papers about LIL published and trying to discuss and define the model and architecture of LIL. People all acknowledge about the three characteristics of LIL: user centered, co-creation, and context aware, which make it distinguished from test platform and other innovation approaches. Its existing model consists of five phases: initialization, preparation, formation, development, and evaluation. Goal Net is a goal-oriented methodology to formularize a progress. In this thesis, Goal Net is adopted to subtract a detailed and systemic methodology for LIL. LIL Goal Net Model breaks the five phases of LIL into more detailed steps. Big data, crowd sourcing, crowd funding and crowd testing take place in suitable steps to realize UUI, MCC and PCA throughout the innovation process in LIL 2.0. It would become a guideline for any company or organization to develop a project in the form of an LIL 2.0 project. To prove the feasibility of LIL Goal Net Model, it was applied to two real cases. One project is a Kinect game and the other one is an Internet product. They were both transformed to LIL 2.0 successfully, based on LIL goal net based methodology. The two projects were evaluated by phenomenography, which was a qualitative research method to study human experiences and their relations in hope of finding the better way to improve human experiences. Through phenomenographic study, the positive evaluation results showed that the new generation of LIL had more advantages in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.Comment: This is a book draf

Management of quality requirements in agile and rapid software development: A systematic mapping study

Context: Quality requirements (QRs) describe the desired quality of software, and they play an important role in the success of software projects. In agile software development (ASD), QRs are often ill-defined and not well addressed due to the focus on quickly delivering functionality. Rapid software development (RSD) approaches (e.g., continuous delivery and continuous deployment), which shorten delivery times, are more prone to neglect QRs. Despite the significance of QRs in both ASD and RSD, there is limited synthesized knowledge on their management in those approaches. Objective: This study aims to synthesize state-of-the-art knowledge about QR management in ASD and RSD, focusing on three aspects: bibliometric, strategies, and challenges. Research method: Using a systematic mapping study with a snowballing search strategy, we identified and structured the literature on QR management in ASD and RSD. Results: We found 156 primary studies: 106 are empirical studies, 16 are experience reports, and 34 are theoretical studies. Security and performance were the most commonly reported QR types. We identified various QR management strategies: 74 practices, 43 methods, 13 models, 12 frameworks, 11 advices, 10 tools, and 7 guidelines. Additionally, we identified 18 categories and 4 non-recurring challenges of managing QRs. The limited ability of ASD to handle QRs, time constraints due to short iteration cycles, limitations regarding the testing of QRs and neglect of QRs were the top categories of challenges. Conclusion: Management of QRs is significant in ASD and is becoming important in RSD. This study identified research gaps, such as the need for more tools and guidelines, lightweight QR management strategies that fit short iteration cycles, investigations of the link between QRs challenges and technical debt, and extension of empirical validation of existing strategies to a wider context. It also synthesizes QR management strategies and challenges, which may be useful for practitioners.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft