Argumentation Schemes for the Collaborative Debate of Requirement Risks in Software Projects

Abstract

-Managing risks in real-world software projects is of paramount importance. A significant class of such risks is related to the engineering of requirements, commonly involving the presentation and analysis of risk management arguments from both software engineers and clients involved in collaborative debates. In this work, drawing inspiration from argumentation theory in Artificial Intelligence, we introduce a number of "argumentation schemes" and associated "critical questions" to support such discussions. In doing so, we propose schemes related to risks due to excessive numbers of requirements; inadequate client representatives and poor understanding of client needs; incorrect, incomplete and conflicting requirements, and complex and non-traceable requirements. We also present a case study where the developed schemes were used to support the discussion of requirement risks in the context of a research and prototyping software project for the Brazilian Army.

A Knowledge Engineering Process for the Development of Argumentation Schemes for Risk Management in Software Projects

“…We also describe a web-based system for supporting users on the development of the proposed scheme specification activities, aiming to facilitate the explicit representation of schemes in OWL. Preliminary evidence for the overall validity of this knowledge engineering process is demonstrated by a reusable set of argumentation schemes for the analysis of requirement risks in software projects as shown in [9]. Future work will involve attempting to exploit semistructured approaches (e.g.…”

“…In this paper, we clearly identify a knowledge engineering process for the development of argumentation schemes for RM in software projects. Along with the discussion of each development activity identified there, the usefulness of this process is illustrated with the presentation of an argumentation scheme for risks of non-stable requirements (in addition to schemes presented in [9]), showing the reusable argumentation artefacts that can be obtained when this development process is followed.…”

“…On the assumption that losing any relevant argumentation knowledge in an application problem degrades the later usefulness on what is captured, the present work lays out the main knowledge engineering activities for the specification of semistructured varieties of argumentation schemes for requirement risks in software projects. As a result of the proposed development process, novel schemes were not only presented in [9], but they were also assessed in collaborative debates in a reallife software project aiming the design and prototyping of a virtual tactical simulator (the SIS-ASTROS project).…”

Explanation Templates for Case-based Reasoning in Collaborative Risk Management

“…In this context, this work investigates a dialogue-based explanation approach [1] to select and display prominent argumentation characteristics recorded in cases for Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) systems [3]. In our project, we are particularly interested in risk management discussions conducted by stakeholders of software projects, where facts and arguments presented in discussion cases capture these risk management experiences [4][5][6]. As a result of queries posed by users in such CBR systems, these cases are retrieved from risk management case bases allowing such facts and arguments recorded in the most similar cases to be reused in the analysis of new problems.…”

“…In a scenario in which CBR becomes a form of explanation-based reasoning, we show that explanation templates can be explored to draw users' attention to the most relevant aspects of the cases of interest, such as 1 DOI reference number: 10.18293/SEKE2018-098 "highly discussed and questioned arguments", and "the balance of pro and con arguments", for instance. In our project, these argumentation characteristics are directed to the analysis of debate tasks for the identification, analysis, and response planning of risks in software projects [12,13], in a scenario in which CBR supports the development of experience-based collaborative risk management tasks [4][5][6]. In effect, the proposed templates allow users to focus on meaningful combinations of project stakeholder moves of argumentation, as for instance, the identification of pros and cons of successful risk proposals, while other user arguments posed in these debates are temporarily omitted when cases retrieved from case bases are inspected.…”