Requirements Quality Is Quality in Use

Abstract

The quality of requirements engineering artifacts is widely considered a success factor for software projects. Currently, the definition of high-quality or good RE artifacts is often provided through normative references, such as quality standards, textbooks, or generic guidelines. We see various problems of such normative references: (1) It is hard to ensure that the contained rules are complete, (2) the contained rules are not context-dependent, and (3) the standards lack precise reasoning why certain criteria are considered bad quality. To change this understanding, we postulate that creating an RE artifact is rarely an end in itself, but just a means to understand and reach the project's goals. Following this line of thought, the purpose of an RE artifact is to support the stakeholders in whatever activities they are performing in the project. This purpose must define high-quality RE artifacts. To express this view, we contribute an activity-based RE quality meta model and show applications of this paradigm. Lastly, we describe the impacts of this view onto research and practice.

Requirements Smells como indicadores de má qualidade na especificação de requisitos: Um Mapeamento Sistemático da Literatura

“…Nos trabalhos [16,23,24] são descritas as metodologias ABRE-QM (Activity-Based Requirements Engineering Quality Model ) para definir a qualidade de artefatos no processo de Engenharia de Requisitos. Os autores sugerem o uso de Requirements Smells para fornecer feedback, como indicadores de má qualidade nas especificações.…”

Feature dependencies in automotive software systems: Extent, awareness, and refactoring

“…This activity-oriented characterization may lead to a more operational characterization of the challenges related to feature dependencies (cf. [35]).…”

What Makes Agile Test Artifacts Useful?

“…In this section, we briefly define the theory that we will use as the foundation of this work. Femmer and Vogelsang [10] argue that it is not sufficient to speak of good and bad quality in general since the quality of an artifact depends on the context in which it is used.…”

“…Quality Factor: A quality factor is a property that is or is not present in an artifact. Femmer and Vogelsang stress that this property "must be objectively assessable through a measure to be used for quality control" [10]. For example, a Test should only contain the minimum number of required Test cases to avoid excessive testing.…”

“…In contrast to these existing ways to define quality criteria, we argue that quality of test artifacts should be defined from a qualityin-use perspective. Following the idea of Activity-Based Artifact Quality Models [10], we postulate that the quality of a test artifact depends on the stakeholder using it and the activities for which it is used. Accordingly, we explore properties (so-called "quality factors") of test artifacts that have a positive or negative impact on the activities of the stakeholders.…”