Challenges of requirements engineering &amp;#x2014; A case study in nuclear energy domain

Raatikainen, Mikko; Männistö, Tomi; Tommila, Teemu; Valkonen, Janne

doi:10.1109/re.2011.6051629

Cited by 12 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Stakeholder role in requirements dependency and reuse. Both requirements dependency and reuse were identified as pain-points, supporting the results from previous exploratory studies [22,23]. However, a new factor emerged in our study, the importance of different stakeholders in developing these approaches.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Needs and challenges for a platform to support large-scale requirements engineering

Fucci

Palomares

Franch

et al. 2018

Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement

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Background: Requirement engineering is often considered a critical activity in system development projects. The increasing complexity of software as well as number and heterogeneity of stakeholders motivate the development of methods and tools for improving largescale requirement engineering. Aims: The empirical study presented in this paper aim to identify and understand the characteristics and challenges of a platform, as desired by experts, to support requirement engineering for individual stakeholders, based on the current pain-points of their organizations when dealing with a large number requirements. Method: We conducted a multiple case study with three companies in different domains. We collected data through ten semi-structured interviews with experts from these companies. Results: The main pain-point for stakeholders is handling the vast amount of data from different sources. The foreseen platform should leverage such data to manage changes in requirements according to customers' and users' preferences. It should also offer stakeholders an estimation of how long a requirements engineering task will take to complete, along with an easier requirements dependency identification and requirements reuse strategy. Conclusions: The findings provide empirical evidence about how practitioners wish to improve their requirement engineering processes and tools. The insights are a starting point for in-depth investigations into the problems and solutions presented. Practitioners can use the results to improve existing or design new practices and tools.Requirements are often considered the basis for all subsequent development, deployment, and maintenance activities.Poorly implemented Requirements Engineering (RE) presents significant risks for a project [3], including its cancellation or additional costs [13]. Gartner research found that requirements are the third source of product defects and the first source of delivered defects for service projects. Accordingly, the cost of fixing defects ranges from $70 at the requirements phase to $14.000 in production phase 1 .Nevertheless, RE often receives little project effort [9] and, in spite of the advances in the field, practitioners still struggle with it [10,19]. For instance, a recent study [7] reports that the requirements definition is a challenge for practitioners.At the same time, the latest advancements in machine learning and natural language processing bear new potentials to support decision-makers in the context of RE [15,17]. As organizations are constantly looking for ways to produce novel products and services, a platform-embedding the above technologies to support the RE process-can increase stakeholders' and customers' satisfaction, improve time to market, and reduce costs.The research project OpenReq 2 aims to develop such a platform for companies dealing with large-scale requirementse.g., in the order of thousands per project [25]. In particular, OpenReq covers industial scenarios related to bid management for railways, community-driven cross-platform de...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Needs and challenges for a platform to support large-scale requirements engineering

Fucci

Palomares

Franch

et al. 2018

Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement

Self Cite

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“…Topics with Relevant Results on Elicitation Elahi et al (2011) • Goal: To come to an understanding of security RE Chinese practices • Type of study: Questionnaire-based survey • Population: 374 subjects from 237 companies of different domains and sizes • Country: China • Security RE practices Raatikainen et al (2011) • Goal: To study the state-of-practice in RE…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another conclusion is that requirements analysts elicit security requirements isolated from known vulnerabilities, but there is a widespread consideration of security standards, that seems to stem from compliance requirements and audit processes, and of common attacks occurred in the past. Raatikainen et al (2011), in their study of RE practices in nuclear industry, report on the challenge of achieving efficient communication during requirements elicitation and, more specifically, how to communicate efficiently with stakeholders with different backgrounds and across organizational borders. Bjarnason et al (2011) report the existence of communication gaps that emerge during requirements elicitation, primarily caused by practitioners not having a clear vision of the overall goal.…”

Section: Kassab Et Al (2015)mentioning

confidence: 99%

The state-of-practice in requirements elicitation: an extended interview study at 12 companies

et al. 2021

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Context.Requirements engineering remains a discipline that is faced with a large number of challenges, including the implementation of a requirements elicitation process in industry. Although several proposals have been suggested by researchers and academics, little is known of the practices that are actually followed in industry.Objective. We investigate the state-of-practice with respect to requirements elicitation, by closely examining practitioners' current practices. To this aim, we focus on the techniques that are used in industry, the roles that requirements elicitation involves, and the challenges that the requirements elicitation process is faced with. Method.We conducted an interview-based survey study involving 24 practitioners from 12 different Swedish IT companies. We recorded the interviews and analysed these recordings by using quantitative and qualitative methods.Results. We found that group interaction techniques, including meetings and workshops, are the most popular type of elicitation techniques that are employed by the practitioners, except in the case of small projects. Additionally, practitioners tend to use a variety of elicitation techniques in each project. We noted that customers are frequently involved in the elicitation process, except in the case of market-driven organizations. Technical staff (for example, developers and architects) are more frequently involved in the elicitation process compared to the involvement of business or strategic staff. Finally, we identified a number of challenges with respect to stakeholders. These challenges include difficulties in understanding and prioritizing their needs. Further, it was noted that requirements instability (i.e., caused by changing needs or priorities) was a predominant challenge. These observations need to be interpreted in the context of the study. Conclusion.The relevant observations regarding the survey participants' experiences should be of interest to the industry; experiences that should be analysed in the practitioners' context. Researchers may find evidence for the use of academic results in practice, thereby inspiring future theoretical work, as well as further empirical studies in the same area.

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“…Globally dispersed stakeholders specify and manage requirements from geographical, temporal and cultural distance which renders effective requirements engineering (RE) difficult [3,8]. Basic requirements management (RM) is considered as one of the most important but complex part of the RE process [9,10]. Global software development makes RM even harder to perform in distributed environments [3].…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Global software development makes RM even harder to perform in distributed environments [3]. The need for dedicated tool support has been identified for requirements management [10] to compensate for the lack of informal communication and collaboration. Commercial requirements management tools such as DOORS™, RequisitePro™ etc.…”

Section: Related Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Spreadsheets as Collaborative Technologies in Global Requirements Change Management

Hussain

Clear

2014

2014 IEEE 9th International Conference on Global Software Engineering

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Abstract-Globally distributed stakeholders employ various collaborative technologies to manage requirements. While these technologies facilitate requirements collaboration, their perceived purpose, use and structure co-evolve over time. In this paper we report the results of a study in two global software development settings involving client-vendor relationships. In both cases we noted that the vendor and client sites appropriated spreadsheet technology in quite specific ways, for use locally and for bridging across sites. Yet these spreadsheet files were embedded within different collaborative technologies. Through close study we note how team members practices co-evolved with the spreadsheet artefacts involved in the process of managing requirements change. We note how through a single spreadsheet cell, we may see a world as in William Blake's "grain of sand". Through the evolution of a spreadsheet's structure or content we expose how seemingly incremental local changes have far wider implications for global requirements change management.

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Challenges of requirements engineering — A case study in nuclear energy domain

Cited by 12 publications

References 5 publications

Needs and challenges for a platform to support large-scale requirements engineering

Needs and challenges for a platform to support large-scale requirements engineering

The state-of-practice in requirements elicitation: an extended interview study at 12 companies

Spreadsheets as Collaborative Technologies in Global Requirements Change Management

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