Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: NL

Proceedings ICPW'07: 2nd International Conference on the Pragmatic Web, 22-23 Oct. 2007, Tilburg: N

DREQUS: an approach for the Discovery of REQuirements Using Scenarios

ABSTRACT: Requirements engineering is recognized as a complex cognitive problem-solving process that takes place in an unstructured and poorly-understood problem context. Requirements elicitation is the activity generally regarded as the most crucial step in the requirements engineering process. The term “elicitation” is preferred to “capture”, to avoid the suggestion that requirements are out there to be collected. Information gathered during requirements elicitation often has to be interpreted, analyzed, modeled, and validated before the requirements engineer can feel confident that a complete set of requirements of a system have been obtained. Requirements elicitation comprises the set of activities that enable discovering, understanding, and documenting the goals and motives for building a proposed software system. It also involves identifying the requirements that the resulting system must satisfy in to achieve these goals. The requirements to be elicited may range from modifications to well-understood problems and systems (i.e. software upgrades), to hazy understandings of new problems being automated, to relatively unconstrained requirements that are open to innovation (e.g. mass-market software). Requirements elicitation remains problematic; missing or mistaken requirements still delay projects and cause cost overruns. No firm definition has matured for requirements elicitation in comparison to other areas of requirements engineering. This research is aimed to improve the results of the requirements elicitation process directly impacting the quality of the software products derived from them

Exploring automated GDPR-compliance in requirements engineering : a systematic mapping study

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), adopted in 2018, profoundly impacts information processing organizations as they must comply with this regulation. In this research, we consider GDPR-compliance as a high-level goal in software development that should be addressed at the outset of software development, meaning during requirements engineering (RE). In this work, we hypothesize that natural language processing (NLP) can offer a viable means to automate this process. We conducted a systematic mapping study to explore the existing literature on the intersection of GDPR, NLP, and RE. As a result, we identified 448 relevant studies, of which the majority (420) were related to NLP and RE. Research on the intersection of GDPR and NLP yielded nine studies, while 20 studies were related to GDPR and RE. Even though only one study was identified on the convergence of GDPR, NLP, and RE, the mapping results indicate opportunities for bridging the gap between these fields. In particular, we identified possibilities for introducing NLP techniques to automate manual RE tasks in the crossing of GDPR and RE, in addition to possibilities of using NLP-based machine learning techniques to achieve GDPR-compliance in RE

Leadership competencies in the requirements phase of IS/IT development projects

Doutoramento em GestãoWhile the successful implementation of an Information Systems/Information Technology (IS/IT) project is widely recognised as being a key research topic, yet recent surveys continue to show significant failure rates. Inadequate requirements management together with inadequate project management have frequently been identified as the principal causes of failure. As a result, the requirements phase has been considered to be one of the most critical phases of the IS/IT project life cycle, especially in relation to software development projects, where new systems must be defined. Moreover, a review of the literature suggests that management leadership is considered to be one of the most important factors in team, project and organisational effectiveness. Management leadership is regarded as being a vital factor in achieving project success, namely in the field of IS/IT. Further research acknowledges that leadership effectiveness may depend on contingency factors, such as the project type, or the project life cycle phase. However, few studies have focussed on the impact of leadership along the software project life cycle, and the literature review found no study that focusses on any particular phase. This is surprising, as the literature suggests that each phase has specific characteristics which are distinguishable by the activities that must be performed. Thus, this research study aims to integrate all these elements within a framework, through a multiple case study using exploratory research. Therefore, this framework will identify which leadership competencies are considered to be relevant to the requirements phase of software development projects’ life cycle. Contingency factors are also be identified and discussed, as well as their impact on the set of identified competencies. Finally, the practical and theoretical contribution of the results are presented, as well as new insights into the requirements and leadership research streams.O estudo da gestão de projetos de Sistemas e Tecnologias de Informação (SI/TIs) é largamente reconhecido como um tópico de investigação atual e relevante. No entanto, estudos empíricos recentes continuam a demonstrar um elevado nível de falhas no processo. Algumas das principais causas mais frequentemente identificadas envolvem a gestão inadequada de requisitos, bem como práticas inadequadas ao nível da gestão global do projeto. Assim, não é surpreendente que a fase que envolve as atividades dos requisitos seja considerada como uma das mais criticas fases de todo o ciclo de vida dos projetos de SI/TI, nomeadamente dos projetos de desenvolvimento de software onde se define um novo sistema a implementar. Para além disso, a revisão da literatura sugere que a liderança é considerada como um dos fatores mais importantes para a obtenção de eficácia das equipas, dos projetos e ainda das organizações. A liderança da gestão é considerada como um fator vital na obtenção do sucesso do projeto, nomeadamente na área dos SI/TIs. Adicionalmente, a literatura reconhece que a eficácia da liderança depende de fatores contingenciais, tais como o tipo de projeto ou a fase do ciclo de vida a que se aplica. No entanto, apenas uma pequena parte desses estudos focam o impacto da liderança ao longo do ciclo de vida do projeto. Surpreendentemente, não foi encontrado nenhum estudo que foque alguma fase em particular, mesmo considerando que a literatura sugere que diferentes fases têm características e atividades que as distingue das demais. Assim, este projeto de investigação pretende explorar a integração de todos estes elementos num quadro de análise comum, através da execução de múltiplos casos de estudos. Este quadro de análise pretende identificar quais as competências de liderança relevantes para a execução da fase de requisitos do ciclo de vida de projetos de desenvolvimento de software. Também se pretende explorar os fatores contingenciais que influenciam o conjunto de competências encontradas, bem como compreender a forma como isso se processa. Finalmente, são apresentadas as contribuições teóricas e práticas, e ainda enumerados os tópicos de investigação futura decorrentes dos resultados obtidos

An investigation of requirements traceability practices in software companies in Malaysia

Requirement traceability (RT) is one of the critical activity of good requirements management and an important part of development projects. At the same time, it improves the quality of software products. Nevertheless, industrial practitioners are challenged by this lack of guidance or results which serve as a rule or guide in establishing effective traceability in their projects. The outcome of this is that practitioners are ill-informed as to the best or most efficient means of accomplishing their tasks, such as found in software companies. Notwithstanding the lack of guidance, there are a number of commonly accepted practices which can guide industrial practitioners with respect to trace the requirements in their projects. This study aims to determine the practices of RT through conducting a systematic literature review. Also, this study conducted a survey for investigating the use of RT practices in the software companies at northern region of Malaysia. Finally, a series of interviews with practitioners were carried out to know the reasons that influence on the use of these practices in software development. The findings showed that majority software companies do not use traceability practices for tracing requirements due to financial issues and the lack of knowledge of these practices. This study presented empirical evidence about the use of RT practices among software companies. Thus, the findings of this study can assist practitioners to select RT practices, and also enables researchers to find gaps and pointers for future study in this study domain