An Industrial Case Study of Immediate Benefits of Requirements Engineering Process Improvement at the Australian Center for Unisys Software

This paper describes an industrial experience in process improvement at one of the Unisys development labs in Australia. Following a capability maturity model (CMM) mini-assessment, the organization is undertaking significant changes in the requirements management process, which include the introduction of group session approaches to requirements analysis and a structured method for writing requirements. An empirical evaluation which investigated other aspects of the process improvement than the CMM model indicates tangible benefits as well as perceived long-term benefits during design and testing. Findings confirm that a more thorough requirements analysis results in more clearly defined, better understood and specified requirements, and an enhanced ability to address the market needs and product strategy requirements. The catalyst behind these improvements included project management leadership, managing the human dimension, collaboration among stakeholders and senior management support

A study of requirements engineering practices among software developers at UUM Information Technology (UUMIT)

Requirements Engineering (RE) is a systemic and integrated process of eliciting, elaborating, negotiating, validating and managing the requirements of a system in software development project. UUM has been supported by various systems in academic, administrative, students’ affair and many others. Most of the current systems are developed and maintained by the Information Technology Department (UUMIT). The aim of this study is to review the current requirements engineering practices and proposing requirements engineering practices during software development at UUMIT. The outsourcing of software development is rapidly growing because of its allied benefits in the limited resources of the organizations. The main problem that is discussed in this research is the lack of studies that support software development activities at the Information Technology department (UUMIT). The study used quantitative methodology and systematic literature review to answer research questions. The main significance of this study is helping educational institutes to produce quality software development and saving cost and time by implementing requirements engineering practices. In addition to that, the study contributes to UUM by identifying the activity needed for software development so that the management is able to allocate budget to provide adequate and precise training as well as seminars for the software developers. The researcher investigated three variables; Requirements Description, Requirements Development (Requirements Elicitation, Requirements Analysis and Negotiation, Requirements Validation), and Requirement Management. The results from the survey showed that the current practice of requirement engineering in IT department of UUM is encouraging, but need for further development because most of RE practices associated with requirement development and requirement management are achieved on a regular basis and not frequently. The researcher recommended providing effective training programs for UUMIT staffs on RE practices and increases their understanding on system requirements using RE practices to develop better systems for the university. Further investigation is required in the future to understand the effect of other RE practices on software developmen

Requirements Engineering Practices in UUMIT Centre: An Assessment Based on the Perceptions of In-House Software Developers

Requirements Engineering (RE) is a systematic procedure that entails and encompasses the elicitation, elaboration, documentation, negotiation, validation and management of the system’s requirements in a software engineering project. Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) is been supported by several systems, engineered by the UUM Information Technology (UUMIT) Centre. The objective of this paper was to investigate the requirements engineering practices at UUMIT Centre. The major issue that led to this study was the absence of studies that support software development efforts at the UUMIT Centre. This research is aimed at assisting UUMIT Centre in developing quality, and as well, time and cost saving software systems through the employment of state of the art requirements engineering practices. Furthermore, the paper, as a contribution to UUM, identifies the activities that are needed for software construction to enable the University management allocate budget for the provision of adequate and cutting edge training for the in-house software developers. Three variables were assessed: Requirement Description, Requirements Development (consisting of: Requirements Elicitation, Requirements Analysis and Negotiation, Requirements Validation), and Requirement Management. The results from this research revealed that the current practices of requirement engineering in UUMIT is good and commendable, however there is need and room for more improvement in a few RE practices that were rarely practiced. In addition, recommendations were also proffered for effective training programs for UUMIT staff on RE practices to build the capacity of in-house developers and other associated staff. The training will increase their understanding on system requirements using RE practices to enable them develops better systems for the university. Further investigation is required in the future to understand the effect of RE practices on software development. In addition, also as a future work, the researchers aim to extend the scope of this study to other government and non-educational organization

Investigation of the current requirements engineering practices among software developers at the Universiti Utara Malaysia Information Technology (UUMIT) Centre

Requirements Engineering (RE) is a systemic and integrated process of eliciting, elaborating, negotiating, validating and managing of the requirements of a system in a software development project. UUM has been supported by various systems developed and maintained by the UUM Information Technology (UUMIT) Centre. The aim of this study was to assess the current requirements engineering practices at UUMIT. The main problem that prompted this research is the lack of studies that support software development activities at the UUMIT. The study is geared at helping UUMIT produce quality but time and cost saving software products by implementing cutting edge and state of the art requirements engineering practices. Also, the study contributes to UUM by identifying the activities needed for software development so that the management will be able to allocate budget to provide adequate and precise training for the software developers. Three variables were investigated: Requirement Description, Requirements Development (comprising: Requirements Elicitation, Requirements Analysis and Negotiation, Requirements Validation), and Requirement Management. The results from the study showed that the current practice of requirement engineering in UUMIT is encouraging, but still need further development and improvement because a few RE practices were seldom practiced

An investigation of a requirements management tool elements

Developing quality software is becoming challenges that required the practitioners to employ appropriate techniques, methodologies and good practices in software engineering.In the Malaysian software industry, the challenges are the practitioners are lack of practicing software engineering especially in the requirements management practices as well as the requirements management tool is not widely facilitated during software project development.In order to encourage them to overcome these problems, this paper attempts to recommend a requirements management tool that embeds the best practices in managing requirements.In addition, this paper aims to investigate the elements of the tool to guarantee that the tool is appropriate for the Malaysian software needs.Then, a comparative study is carried out to search for various available requirements management tools that have those elements.The result shown that, there is no specific tool that has all the elements in order to fit the Malaysian software needs.Therefore, it is essential to develop a requirements management tool that able to assist the software practitioners in developing quality software

A requirements management tool for small and medium projects: An industrial case study

In the previous years, there are many requirements management tools available in the market.However, these tools are expensive, complicated, difficult to learn and too sophisticated for small and medium projects. This paper presents a case study of implementing a Requirements Management Tool for small and medium projects (RMT-SMP) in the real industry in order for the RMT-SMP to be feasible for small and medium projects. The case study carried out by defining the hypothesis, selection of the pilot study, identification of different methods of comparison, consideration of the effects of cofounding factors, planning of the case study, monitoring the case study as well as result analysis and report generation.The results have shown that the RMT-SMP is practical and feasible for the small and medium projects in the Malaysian software industry and encourages the practitioners to have a better approach in managing their requirements during software development projects

Experiencia de mejora del proceso de requisitos aplicando investigación acción y casos de mejora

Este trabajo de maestría consiste en una experiencia de mejora del proceso software enfocado en el proceso de requisitos dentro de una Organización de servicios -- Este documento contiene la estructura del marco de trabajo del programa de mejora, junto con la experiencia obtenida en la ejecución del programa de mejora, lo cual facilita la comprensión de los objetivos, preguntas de investigación y resultados obtenidos -- El objetivo principal fue mejorar el proceso de requisitos haciendo uso de un modelo de referencia, de evaluación y de mejora; donde el modelo de evaluación fue propuesto por el autor del presente trabajo, el cual evalúa el proceso de requisitos establecido por la Organización desde dos perspectivas: primero, desde la perspectiva de los usuarios, se evalúa y analiza el nivel de conocimiento y conciencia que se tiene sobre el proceso requisitos, y segundo, desde la perspectiva del Equipo de desarrollo, donde se evalúa y analiza el nivel de adopción de buenas prácticas recomendadas por el CMMI-DEV 1.3 para el desarrollo y gestión de requisitos -- Para recopilar la información se diseñó y aplicó un instrumento de evaluación para cada perspectiva -- Además, para alcanzar los objetivos del programa de mejora del proceso de requisitos, fue necesario integrar el modelo IDEAL con casos de mejora e Investigación - Acción, con el propósito de generar resultados tangibles y a corto plazo; y lograr que el modelo de mejora este alineado a las necesidades de la Organización -- Asimismo, se comparte el análisis de resultados, financiero, de impacto y de adopción una vez finalizado el programa de mejora, donde se establece el ROI, los factores de éxito, los nuevos niveles de adopción de las prácticas recomendadas por CMMI y los índices de satisfacción de los usuario

Introducing requirements engineering into product development : towards systematic user requirements definition

Without knowing the requirements of customers and users, it is difficult to build the right product. Although requirements engineering (RE) is considered a critical activity in product development, the state of RE practices seems to be immature in many organizations. For several years, researchers have tried to understand why so many companies have informal RE processes and why it is so difficult to introduce RE technology into mainstream practice. This thesis investigates how RE can be introduced into organizations that develop market-driven products. The results are based on the experiences gathered from four Finnish organizations that considered it essential to improve their product development processes by investing in RE. To gain a deep understanding of RE process improvement in real product development contexts, we conducted four longitudinal case studies using an action research approach. One of our main findings is that introducing RE into product development appears to involve a cultural change. By this we mean that development personnel need to adopt a new way of thinking and working when defining requirements systematically from the customers' and users' points of view. Furthermore, this cultural change involves such human factors as beliefs, attitudes, motivation, and commitment of development engineers and managers. One way of supporting the cultural change is to define a simple RE process model that links business goals to technical requirements via user needs and user requirements. The purpose of the process model is to give an overview of RE, support communication by providing common terminology, and emphasize the importance of systematic user requirements definition. On the basis of the lessons learned from the four case studies, we also recommend a set of RE practices that support the systematic definition of user requirements. Furthermore, the thesis provides a model of factors that affect organization-wide implementation of RE practices and describes challenges organizations may face when introducing RE into product development. The main conclusion drawn from this work is that changing the perspective from technical requirements to user requirements can be difficult for product development personnel. Furthermore, it can take several years for the cultural change towards systematic user requirements definition to spread throughout the whole product development organization. However, the experiences from the case studies show that the organization-wide adoption of RE practices can be enhanced by offering Just-in-Time training and an RE expert's assistance for development teams when they are defining user requirements for the first time.reviewe