QREME – Quality Requirements Management Model for Supporting Decision-Making

Abstract

Context and motivation] Quality requirements (QRs) are inherently difficult to manage as they are often subjective, context-dependent and hard to fully grasp by various stakeholders. Furthermore, there are many sources that can provide input on important QRs and suitable levels. Responding timely to customer needs and realizing them in product portfolio and product scope decisions remain the main challenge.[Question/problem] Data-driven methodologies based on product usage data analysis gain popularity and enable new (bottom-up, feedback-driven) ways of planning and evaluating QRs in product development. Can these be efficiently combined with established top-down, forward-driven management of QRs? [Principal idea / Results] We propose a model for how to handle decisions about QRs at a strategic and operational level, encompassing product decisions as well as business intelligence and usage data. We inferred the model from an extensive empirical investigation of five years of decision making history at a large B2C company. We illustrate the model by assessing two industrial case studies from different domains.[Contribution] We believe that utilizing the right approach in the right situation will be key for handling QRs, as both different groups of QRs and domains have their special characteristics.

A validated model for the scoping process of quality requirements: a multi-case study

“…Several studies conclude that quality requirements are essential, but not systematically handled (Berntsson Svensson et al 2012;Ameller et al 2016). Our previous work brings supporting evidence that addressing deficiencies in quality requirements take a long time (Olsson et al 2019). The main reasons are a lack of explicit handling of quality requirements on a strategic level (also highlighted by Ameller et al (2013), Eckhardt et al 2016) and a lack of a feedback-loop in the scope decision process, which is one possibility to understand better the user experience and perception of the quality requirements.…”

“…This study continues our previous research efforts on understanding and supporting decision making about quality requirements. We have previously performed a longitudinal case study of one company's quality requirements decisions (Olsson et al 2019). We empirically identified constructs underlying the scope decision process for quality requirements.…”

“…We empirically identified constructs underlying the scope decision process for quality requirements. Based on those constructs, we developed the QREME conceptual model (Olsson and Wnuk 2018). In this paper, we present Q-REPM, an operationalization of the QREME conceptual model for the scoping process of quality requirements.…”

“…QREME is a conceptual framework (Olsson and Wnuk 2018) for decision making about quality requirements. The aim is to improve the integration of data-driven requirements engineering (Maalej et al 2015) into the scoping process by clarifying which roles should be involved in the decision process.…”

An empirical study on decision making for quality requirements

“…We are currently working towards a conceptual model for scope decisions on QFs (Olsson & Wnuk, 2018). We plan to validate both the underlying empirical findings of this study as well as to validate the applicability of our conceptual model with several companies.…”