Requirements engineering: In search of the dependent variables

Gorschek, Tony; Davis, Alan M.

doi:10.1016/j.infsof.2007.10.003

Cited by 60 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(40 reference statements)

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“…Furthermore, in another study Damian and Chisan (2006) found that rich interactions between RE and testing can lead to pay-offs in improved test coverage and risk management, and in reduced requirements creep, overscoping and waste, resulting in increased productivity and product quality. Gorschek and Davis (2007) have proposed a taxonomy for assessing the impact of RE on, not just project, but also on product, company and society level; to judge RE not just by the quality of the system requirements specification, but also by its wider impact.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges and practices in aligning requirements with verification and validation: a case study of six companies

et al. 2013

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Weak alignment of requirements engineering (RE) with verification and validation(VV) may lead to problems in delivering the required products in time with the right quality. For example, weak communication of requirements changes to testers may result in lack of verification of new requirements and incorrect verification of old invalid requirements, leading to software quality problems, wasted effort and delays. However, despite the serious implications of weak alignment research and practice both tend to focus on one or the other of RE or VV rather than on the alignment of the two. We have performed a multi-unit case study to gain insight into issues around aligning RE and VV by interviewing 30 practitioners from 6 software developing companies, involving 10 researchers in a flexible research process for case studies. The results describe current industry challenges and practices in aligning RE with VV, ranging from quality of the individual RE and VV activities, through tracing and tools, to change control and sharing a common understanding at strategy, goal and design level. The study identified that human aspects are central, i.e. cooperation and communication, and that requirements engineering practices are a critical basis for alignment. Further, the size of an organisation and its motivation for applying alignment practices, e.g. external enforcement of traceability, are variation factors that play a key role in achieving alignment. Our results provide a strategic roadmap for practitioners improvement work to address alignment challenges. Furthermore, the study provides a foundation for continued research to improve the alignment of RE with VV.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges and practices in aligning requirements with verification and validation: a case study of six companies

et al. 2013

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“…This aspect was excluded from the classification as it is difficult to incorporate the aspect into an overall scoring of rigor and relevance. It is also difficult to discern what constitutes a relevant dependant variable in requirements engineering (Gorschek and Davis 2008), and the relevance of variables measured is likely also dependant on the technology investigated. Expertise and skill of subjects What is the skill and expertise of subjects used in the evaluation in relation to the technology being evaluated?…”

Section: Model Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A method for evaluating rigor and industrial relevance of technology evaluations

2010

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One of the main goals of an applied research field such as software engineering is the transfer and widespread use of research results in industry. To impact industry, researchers developing technologies in academia need to provide tangible evidence of the advantages of using them. This can be done trough step-wise validation, enabling researchers to gradually test and evaluate technologies to finally try them in real settings with real users and applications. The evidence obtained, together with detailed information on how the validation was conducted, offers rich decision support material for industry practitioners seeking to adopt new technologies and researchers looking for an empirical basis on which to build new or refined technologies. This paper presents model for evaluating the rigor and industrial relevance of technology evaluations in software engineering. The model is applied and validated in a comprehensive systematic literature review of evaluations of requirements engineering technologies published in software engineering journals. The aim is to show the applicability of the model and to characterize how evaluations are carried out and reported to evaluate the state-of-research. The review shows that the model can be applied to characterize evaluations in requirements engineering. The findings from applying the model also show that the majority of technology evaluations in requirements engineering lack both industrial relevance and rigor. In addition, the research field does not show any improvements in terms of industrial relevance over time.

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“…But it becomes a difficult task to know the interdependencies and to properly discard the requirements without one showing effect on the other [31].…”

Section: Problem Definitionmentioning

confidence: 99%