Exploiting a Goal-Decomposition Technique to Prioritize Non-functional Requirements

Business stakeholders need to have clear and realistic goals if they want to meet commitments in application development. As a consequence, at early stages they prioritize requirements. However, requirements do change. The effect of change forces the stakeholders to balance alternatives and reprioritize requirements accordingly. In this paper we discuss the problem of priorities to non-functional requirements subjected to change. We, then, propose an approach to help smooth the impact of such changes. Our approach favors the translation of nonoperational specifications into operational definitions that can be evaluated once the system is developed. It uses the goal-question-metric method as the major support to decompose non-operational specifications into operational ones. We claim that the effort invested in operationalizing NFRs helps dealing with changing requirements during system development. Based on\ud this transformation and in our experience, we provide guidelines to prioritize volatile non-functional requirements

Towards a Framework for Managing Inconsistencies in Systems of Systems

The growth in the complexity of software systems has led to a proliferation of systems that have been created independently to provide specific functions, such as activity tracking, household energy management or personal nutrition assistance. The runtime composition of these individual systems into Systems of Systems (SoSs) enables support for more sophisticated functionality that cannot be provided by individual constituent systems on their own. However, in order to realize the benefits of these functionalities it is necessary to address a number of challenges associated with SoSs, including, but not limited to, operational and managerial independence, geographic distribution of participating systems, evolutionary development, and emergent conflicting behavior that can occur due interactions between the requirements of the participating systems. In this paper, we present a framework for conflict management in SoSs. The management of conflicting requirements involves four steps, namely (a) overlap detection, (b) conflict identification, (c) conflict diagnosis, and (d) conflict resolution based on the use of a utility function. The framework uses a Monitor-Analyze-Plan- Execute- Knowledge (MAPE-K) architectural pattern. In order to illustrate the work, we use an example SoS ecosystem designed to support food security at different levels of granularity

Priority Assessment of Software Requirements from Multiple Perspectives

The development of complex software systems involves collecting software requirements from various stakeholders. Often stakeholder perceptions conflict during the requirements elicitation phase. An effective technique to resolve such a conflict is needed. We presented a framework that prioritizes software requirements gathered from multiple stakeholders by incorporating inter-perspective relationships, which is not addressed by existing priority assessment techniques. We use a relationship matrix to analyze the impact between requirements and facilitate the integration process which assesses their priorities based on their relationships from multiple perspectives. It allows the development team to resolve conflicts effectively and concentrate their valuable time and resources on the critical few requirements from multiple perspectives that directly contribute to high customer satisfaction

Исследование качества программного обеспечения: сравнение оценок экспертов при определении приоритетов

Досліджуються розбіжності в сприйнятті якості програмного забезпечення різними групами людей, причетними до його розробки і використання. 315 респондентів оцінили у відповідності до своїх пріоритетів 13 широко поширених атрибутів якості програмного забезпечення. Оцінювання проводилося за шкалою від одного до семи у залежності від того, наскільки важливим респондент вважав даний атрибут. Розбіжності в оцінках пріоритетів цих атрибутів досліджувалися з використанням статистичних методів. Проведено порівняння отриманих емпіричних результатів із результатами кількох досліджень, виконаних за участю експертів в області розробки програмного забезпечення, що дозволяє порівняти спостережувані взаємозв’язки між отриманими в даній роботі бажаними атрибутами з оцінками експертів в області, спільній для всіх цих атрибутів.This work explores the differences in software quality perceptions between different groups of people involved with the software development process. Three hundred and fifteen respondents ranked each of thirteen generally accepted attributes of software quality on a scale of one to seven according to their perceived importance for the piece of software most vital to that individual’s work. Differences in the priorities assigned to these attributes were explored using a number of different statistical techniques. Results of this research were compared to the results of several existing studies conducted by experts in theory and practice of software engineering. Comparisons between the studies are valuable, because they allow a comparison of observed correlations between desires for different attributes derived in this study with expert opinion on the extent to which these attributes can be realized in conjunction.Исследуются отличия в восприятии качества программного обеспечения разными группами людей, занятыми его разработкой и использованием. 315 респондентов оценили в соответствии со своими приоритетами 13 широко используемых атрибутов качества программного обеспечения. Оценивание проводилось по шкале от одного до семи в зависимости от того, насколько важным респондент считал данный атрибут. Отличия в оценках приоритетов этих атрибутов исследовались с привлечением статистических методов. Проведено сравнение полученных эмпирических результатов с результатами нескольких исследований, выполненных при участии экспертов в области разработки программного обеспечения, что позволяет сравнить наблюдаемые взаимосвязи между полученными в данной работе желаемыми атрибутами с оценками экспертов в области, общей для всех этих атрибутов

Quality of IS in Services: Theory of Constructs for Service, Information, and System

In this paper, we investigate the theoretical inter-relationships among three important information systems (IS) quality constructs: information quality, system quality, and service quality. DeLone and McLean formulated information quality and system quality in their 1992 IS Success Model. Following suggestions from later IS service quality studies DeLone and McLean (2003) added service quality to form a triumvirate. Unfortunately, this addition has unintentionally revealed the overall lack of integrated and consistent theorization of the relationships between different IS quality constructs in IS studies to date. To address part of the research gap, we apply a marketing exchange perspective to examine how information quality, system quality, and service quality can be inter-related with each other under different service contexts involving IS. Finally, an integrated IS quality model is proposed for empirical testing. We hope this study can contribute toward coherent theory development of integrating IS quality elements

Non-Functional Requirements Elicitation Guideline for Agile Methods

One of the essential activities in software development is elicitation of requirement. Majority of the studies has pointed out that less attention is given to the NonFunctional Requirement (NFR). The negligence of NFR elicitation is due to lack of knowledge of the user and developer about NFR. Our study presents elicitation guidelines for NFRs in agile methods. This guideline will helps developers as well as users in agile methods. A case study is conducted on the group of master students for eliciting NFR with the help of elicitation guidelines. In addition, the initial results were obtained by extracting NFRs from eProcurement document that carries requirements of major European Union projects. The result of the case study is positive and encouraging for the new developers and users having less awareness about NFRs. Furthermore, the study describes the role of cloud computing in agile methods, especially in elicitation activity

Quality of IS in Services: Theory and Validation of Constructs for Service, Information, and System

IS quality aspects have been important in IS research and practice. In DeLone and McLean’s 2003 IS Success Model (ISM), the quality of information, system, and service are treated as independent determinants of user IS satisfaction and behavioral intention. Although numerous quality measures have been developed, most lack theoretical grounding and systematic content validation. Increasing use of IT in services adds complexities for defining appropriate content domains for the traditional IS quality constructs. This paper starts with a literature review of IS quality constructs. Then, it applies a marketing exchange theory perspective to identify potential variants of IS quality nomologies for different service contexts. A theoretical modification of ISM is proposed. Finally, as a part of the research-in-progress, an empirical validation of the content of IS quality measures is provided. This study aims to establish a solid theoretical and empirical foundation for coherent development and application of IS quality measures