Tackling the requirements jigsaw puzzle

Abstract

A key challenge during stakeholder meetings is that of presenting the requirements and conflicts to stakeholders in a way that fosters co-responsibility and co-ownership regarding the conflicts and their resolution. In this paper, we propose a jigsaw puzzle metaphor to make identified conflicts explicit as well as an associated method to utilise this metaphor during stakeholder meetings. The metaphor provides an easy to understand language for stakeholders from otherwise diverse backgrounds. It enables stakeholders to work with a well-understood concept -that of building a system from misshapen pieces. These characteristics foster communication and team work, which improve commitment of stakeholders in co-authoring of requirements and co-responsibility in conflict handling. The gamification of conflict resolution also promotes a relaxed environment, which in turn improves team cooperation and creativity. Our experience in three user studies demonstrates that the jigsaw puzzle indeed improves such co-responsibility and co-ownership when compared with typical text-based representations of requirements.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: A Study of Security Decisions in a Cyber-Physical Systems Game

“…Examples in software engineering include teaching software processes [18], [19], value-based software engineering [14], software process risk management [25], and requirements engineering good practices [23]. In [20], a jigsaw puzzle-based game is used to perform analysis and resolution of conflicts among stakeholders, showing how a game can involve players into activities usually considered boring or technical.…”

“…While there is a definite educational and awareness-raising aspect to D-D (as noted consistently by players in all our subject groups), our focus in this paper is on contrasting the security decisions of the three demographics as they manifested in the game sessions. Existing work, e.g., [20], has demonstrated such use of games as an effective means to study decision processes of diverse stakeholders. Specifically, the tangible, physical board enables players to manipulate security features and observe the consequences of their decisions.…”