Preventing Incomplete/Hidden Requirements: Reflections on Survey Data from Austria and Brazil

Many software projects fail due to problems in requirements engineering (RE). The goal of this paper is analyzing a specific and relevant RE problem in detail: incomplete/hidden requirements. We replicated a global family of RE surveys with representatives of software organizations in Austria and Brazil. We used the data to (a) characterize the criticality of the selected RE problem, and to (b) analyze the reported main causes and mitigation actions. Based on the analysis, we discuss how to prevent the problem. The survey includes 14 different organizations in Austria and 74 in Brazil, including small, medium and large sized companies, conducting both, plan-driven and agile development processes. Respondents from both countries cited the incomplete/hidden requirements problem as one of the most critical RE problems. We identified and graphically represented the main causes and documented solution options to address these causes. Further, we compiled a list of reported mitigation actions. From a practical point of view, this paper provides further insights into common causes of incomplete/hidden requirements and on how to prevent this problem.Comment: in Proceedings of the Software Quality Days, 201

Advanced data driven visualisation for geo-spatial data

Most current 3D landscape visualisation systems either use bespoke hardware solutions, or offer a limited amount of interaction and detail when used in realtime mode. We are developing a modular, data driven 3D visualisation system that can be readily customised to specific requirements. By utilising the latest software engineering methods and bringing a dynamic data driven approach to geo-spatial data visualisation we will deliver an unparalleled level of customisation in near-photo realistic, realtime 3D landscape visualisation. In this paper we show the system framework and describe how this employs data driven techniques. In particular we discuss how data driven approaches are applied to the spatiotemporal management aspect of the application framework, and describe the advantages these convey

How do goals drive the engineering of capacity-driven Web services?

This paper discusses a goal-based approach for the engineering of capacity-driven Web services. In this approach goals are set to define the roles that these Web services could play in business applications, to frame the requirements that could be put on these Web services, and to identify the processes in term of business logic that these Web services could implement. Because of the specificities of capacity-driven Web services compared to regular (i.e., mono-capacity) Web services, their engineering in terms of design, development, and deployment needs to be conducted in a complete different way. A Web service that is empowered with several capacities, which are basically operations to execute, has to know which capacity it can choose from several capacities for triggering at run-time. For this purpose, the Web service takes into account different types of requirements like data and privacy that are put on each capacity empowering this Web service. In addition, this paper shows that the goals in the approach to engineering capacity-driven Web services are geared towards three aspects, which as business logic, requirement, and capacity. © 2010 IEEE

Bridging the Vendor-User Gap in Enterprise Cloud Software Development through Data-Driven Requirements Engineering

The shift from on-premise to cloud software has fundamentally changed the interactions between enterprise software vendors and their users. Where user involvement has traditionally been a challenge, increasingly large amounts of user input now allow for data-driven requirements engineering (RE). Research has paid little attention so far to the changes entailed by data-driven RE and addressed neither technical nor empirical perspectives of data-driven RE in enterprise software development. We aim to understand how the increasing availability of large amounts of user input impact RE in enterprise cloud software development. We provide a conceptualization of the newly available user input and how it changes traditional RE. We collect and analyze rich data from multiple product units at a leading enterprise software company and examine the integration of user input into RE; specifically requirements discovery, prioritization, experimentation, and specification. We thereby aim to contribute to non-normative and empirical work on RE