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CREWS Reports 1999
Mustapha Tawbi, Fernando Velez, Carine Souveyet, Camille Ben Achour
Submitted to
ICRE 2000, Fourth IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering, Schaumburg,
Illinois, USA, June 2000.
Abstact
The CREWS 21.903 long term research ESPRIT project has proposed several strategies to
support requirements elicitation through textual scenarios analysis. In the
CREWS-L'Ecritoire approach, guidelines are proposed to systematise these strategies.
However these guidelines have never been evaluated so far. To evaluate the effectiveness
of the CREWS-L'Ecritoire requirements elicitation guidelines, an empirical study was
undertaken : several subjects were asked to apply the CREWS requirements elicitation
strategies with and without guidance. The results of this experiment indicate that : (i.)
subjects apply the CREWS-L'Ecritoire guiding rules with different rates of efficiency,
(ii.) in average, all the guiding rules improve the subjects' ability to elicit correct
requirements, and (iii.) each of the guiding rule has a different rate of efficiency. The
paper presents the protocol used to conduct the experiment, and details the evaluation of
these results for each of the three CREWS scenario based requirements elicitation
strategies.
Paris team
Abstract
This document is a report on the evaluation of the approach developed in CREWS-C2
workpackage, namely CREWS-L'Ecritoire. This evaluation was performed during the reporting
period E1.
Matthias Jarke, Stefanie Kethers
in
Wirtschaftsinformatik, Heft 4, August 1999, 41. Jahrgang
Abstract
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can balance globalization efforts by
participating in regional cooperation networks. As SMEs often have no or little experience
with cooperation, they need to develop and maintain cooperation knowledge. From
experiences in the German AdCo project, we derive a network of dependencies between
problems occurring in regional cooperations, their causes, and possible countermeasures.
In addition, we describe a combination of interrelated modelling methods which aid in
analyzing cooperation processes with respect to strategic dependencies, service quality,
and implications for the individual workplaces.
P. Haumer, M. Jarke, K. Pohl, K. Weidenhaupt
to appear in
Interacting with Computers, 1999.
(Extended and revised version of HICSS '99 paper)
Abtract
When specifying change for an existing system, the history and functionality of the system
to be replaced has to be considered. This avoids neglecting important system functionality
and repeating errors. The properties and the rationale behind the existing system can be
elicited by analysing concrete system-usage scenarios. The results of the analysis of the
existing system are then typically represented using conceptual models. To establish
conceptual models of high quality reviewing the models is common practice. The problem
faced with when reviewing conceptual models, is that the reviewer cannot assess and
therefore understand the basis (concrete system usage) on which the conceptual models were
built.
In this paper, we present an approach to overcome this problem. We establish Extended
Trace-ability, by recording concrete system-usage scenarios using rich media (e.g. video,
speech, graphic) and interrelating the recorded observations with the conceptual models.
We discuss the main improvements for review processes and illustrate the advantages with
excerpts from a case study performed in a mechanical engineering company.
Andreas Becks, Jörg Köller
an abridged version of this paper appears in:
Proceedings of the 14th IEEE International Conference on Automated Software Engineering,
October 12-15, Cocoa Beach, Florida, USA, 1999.
Abstract
Scenarios are valuable for supporting communication among system developers in the initial
phases of requirements engineering. But the problem of how to fruitfully deal with large
informal or semi-formal scenario collections consisting of weakly structured texts is
still a key research issue. In this paper we report on the application of a novel approach
for automatically structuring textual document collections to scenario management. We
discuss how structuring scenarios can help to support the analysis and maintenance of
scenario collections. To evaluate this approach we present a case study within the
CAPE-OPEN project which is concerned with a collaborative effort of standardizing
simulator software for chemical engineering.
M. Jarke, A. Becks, J. Köller, C. Tresp, B. Braunschweig
in
The Ninth Annual International Symposium of the International Council on Systems
Engineering, INCOSE '99, June 6 - 10, 1999 Brighton, England.
Abstract
Under the double pressures of global competition and increasing environmental awareness,
the importance of high-performance simulation tools in the process industries (food,
chemicals, oil, ...) is rapidly growing. However, traditional simula-tion environments are
closed monolithic systems which are extensible only by a small group of market-leading
vendors. The resulting bottlenecks in interoperability, reuse and innovationled to the
CAPE-OPEN project, in which the chemical and oil industries are defining standards for a
component-based approach to process simulation, in order to open up the market to smaller
vendors and to facilitate rapid industrial uptake of academic research prototypes. For
general systems engineering, the CAPE-OPEN standardising process has at least two
interesting features: (a) it has experimented on a large scale with a distributed use case
approach, following a variant of the UML (Unified Modelling Language) approach for
modelling, but also linking down to programming stan-dards based on CORBA (Common Object
Request Broker Architecture) and COM (Common Object Model); (b) the management of this
world-wide distributed effort has been facilitated by the use of an Internet-based
workspace co-operation environment, augmented by advanced structuring and analysis methods
from software engineering and computational intelligence.
Bala Ramesh and Matthias Jarke
Abstract
Requirements traceability is intended to ensure continued alignment between stakeholder
requirements and system evolution. To be useful, traces must be organized according to
some modeling framework. Indeed, several such frameworks have been proposed, mostly based
on theoretical considerations or analysis of other literature. This paper, in contrast,
follows an empirical approach. Focus groups and interviews conducted in 26 major software
development organizations demonstrate a wide range of traceability practices with distinct
low-end and high-end users of traceability. From these observations, reference models
comprising the most important kinds of traceability links for various development tasks
have been synthesized. The resulting models have been validated in case studies and are
incorporated in a number of commercial traceability tools. The discussion of the link
types and their usage in practice has implications for the design of next-generation
traceability methods and tools.
J. Ralyté.
To appear in
Proceedings of the First International Workshop on the Requirements Engineering Process -
Innovative Techniques, Models, Tools to support the RE Process, Florence, Italy, September
1999.
Abstract
not yet available.
C. Rolland, N. Prakash.
Submitted to
Annals of Software Engineering, Special Volume on Comparative Studies of Engineering
Approaches for Software Engineering
Abstract
Conceptual modelling is situated in the broader view of information systems requirements
engineering. Requirements Engineering (RE) explores the objectives of different
stakeholders and the activities carried out by them to meet these objectives in order to
derive purposeful system requirements and therefore lead to better quality systems i.e.
systems that meet the requirements of their users. Thus RE product models use concepts for
modelling these instead of concepts like data, process, events etc. used in conceptual
models. Since the former are more stable than the latter, requirements engineering manages
change better. The paper gives the rationale for extending traditional conceptual models
and introduce some RE product models. Furthermore, in contrast to conceptual modelling,
requirements engineering lays great stress on the engineering process employed. The paper
introduces some RE process models and considers their effect on tool support.
J. Ralyte, C. Rolland, V. Plihon.
In
Proceedings of CAISE 99, 11th Conference on Advanced Information Systems Engineering
Heidelberg, Germany June 14-18, 1999.
Abstract
Scenarios have proven useful to elicit, validate and document requirements but cannot be
used in isolation. Our concern in this paper is to integrate scenario-based techniques in
existing methods. We propose a set of operators to support such an integration. This set
is classified in two sub-sets: the one dealing with the integration of the product models
of the two initial methods and the one concerned with the integration of their process
models. The operators are used to integrate the CREWS-L'Ecritoire approach with the OOSE
method. This leads to enhance the use case model construction of the OOSE method with on
one hand, the linguistic techniques for scenario authoring and formalisation and on the
other hand, the discovery strategies to elicit requirements by scenario analysis of the
CREWS-L'Ecritoire approach.
C. Rolland, N. Prakash. A. Benjamen.
Submitted to
Requirements Engineering Journal, 1999
Abstract
Situatedness of development processes is a key issue in both the software engineering and
the method engineering communities, as there is a strong felt need for process
prescriptions to be adapted to the situation at hand. The assumption of the process
modelling approach presented in this paper is that process prescriptions shall be selected
according to the actual situation at hand i.e. dynamically in the course of the process.
The paper focuses on a multi-model view of process modelling which supports this
dynamicity. The approach builds on the notion of a labelled graph of intentions and
strategies called a map as well as its associated guidelines. The map is a navigational
structure which supports the dynamic selection of the intention to be achieved next and
the appropriate strategy to achieve it whereas guidelines help in the operationalization
of the selected intention. The paper presents the map and guidelines and exemplifies the
approach with the CREWS-L'Ecritoire method for requirements engineering.
Mustapha Tawbi, Camille Ben Achour, Fernando Vélez
In
Proceedings of the First International Workshop on the Requirements Engineering Process -
Innovative Techniques, Models, Tools to support the RE Process, Florence, Italy, September
1999.
Abstract
The CREWS 21.903 long term research ESPRIT project has proposed several strategies to
support requirements elicitation through textual scenarios analysis. In the
CREWS-L'Ecritoire approach, guidelines are proposed to systematise these strategies. To
evaluate the effectiveness of the CREWS-L'Ecritoire requirements elicitation guidelines,
an empirical study was undertaken. This paper presents an overview of the experiment
results. These indicate that : (i.) subjects apply the CREWS-L'Ecritoire guiding rules
with different rates of efficiency, (ii.) in average, all the guiding rules improve the
subjects' ability to elicit correct requirements, and (iii.) each of the guiding rule has
a different rate of efficiency.
C. Ben Achour, C. Souveyet, M. Tawbi
to appear in
International Journal of Computer Systems Science & Engineering, Special issue on
Object-Oriented Information Systems
Abstract
Scenarios have been advocated as a means of improving Requirements Engineering. The
assumption is that scenarios allow users to better express their requirements (or more
generally their knowledge of the constructed system) because they use their own
vocabulary. In Europe, a few scenario-based methods and tools have already been developed
in research; besides, scenarios are widely used in industry. In this context, the long
Term Research 21.903 ESPRIT project CREWS has undertaken research on Cooperative
Requirements Engineering With Scenarios. This work includes: i. surveys on scenario-based
Requirements Engineering approaches and on the use of scenarios in European industry
together with ii. the development of four interrelated methods for the acquisition and
validation of requirements based on scenarios. This paper reports the CREWS objectives and
achievements, and further details the CREWS-L'Ecritoire approach, which purpose is to
guide the elicitation of requirements by exploiting textual scenarios. Pointers to the
CREWS surveys, to the four interrelated CREWS approaches, and to on-going works undertaken
by CREWS are also given.
Peter Haumer, Jürgen Rack, Klaus Pohl
in
Fifth International Workshop on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality
(REFSQ '99), Heidelberg, Germany, June 14-15, 1999.
Abstract
Conceptual goal models are used to express intentional aspects of the system under
de-velopment. Among others, goal models facilitate stakeholder discussions and agreement
about main system aspects during early requirements engineering phases. As experiences
from participatory design indicates, the use of multimedia representations (especially
videos) leads to better stakeholder involvement and, as a consequence, the produced
con-ceptual (goal) models and specifications respectively are of higher quality.
In this paper, we report on our empirical investigation which shows that the use of
asso-ciations between goals and video parts documenting goal achievements and goal
failures improve the performance of typical requirements engineering tasks. More
precisely, they lead to more correct and complete results.
Andreas Becks, Stefan Sklorz, Matthias Jarke
Abstract
Corporate knowledge management in science and engineering-intensive organizations involves
tasks such as standard generation and evaluation, comparison of related cases and
experience reuse in their treatment, and the ability to rapidly retrieve all relevant
documents around a certain topic or project even if this project has extended over years
or decades. No single information retrieval technique is likely to adequately deal with
such tasks independent of the specific situation. In this paper, we therefore present a
modular approach that allows a variety of techniques from clustering, exploitation of
semantic structure knowledge, and visualization to be used in the handling of technical
document collections for knowledge management purposes. Usable implementations exist for
large parts of the approach. Two real-world usage experiences with projects in the
chemical engineering and medical domains provide initial evidence for the value of the
approach.
Ralf Dömges, Klaus Pohl
Appeared in
Communications of the ACM, Vol. 41, No. 12, December 1998.
Abtract
Traceability is a prerequisite for developing high quality (software) systems. Capturing
and maintaining all available trace data is too labor intensive and thus by far too
expensive. To reduce the efforts and the costs, the trace data and the trace strategies
defining how to capture and use the trace data have to be adapted to project-specific
needs. Such an adaptation is impossible without suitable tool support. To empower the
adaptation of trace capture and trace usage according to project-specific needs we argue
that trace environments should support the adaptation of trace strategies and trace
data on a modeling level; guide the stakeholders in recording and using the trace data
according to explicit process definitions; empower organizational learning based on the
experiences made. We characterize the support offered by commercial trace environments,
discuss their shortcomings and sketch future directions trace environments should strive
for.
Hans W. Nissen, Matthias Jarke
Appeared in
Lyytinen/Welke (eds.): Special Issue on Meta Modeling and Method Engineering, Information
Systems vol. 24, no. 2, 1999.
Abstract
Relationships among different modeling perspectives have been systematically investigated
focusing either on given notations (e.g. OMT) or on domain reference models (e.g. SAP). In
contrast, many successful informal methods for business analysis and requirements
engineering (e.g. JAD) emphasize team negotiation, goal orientation and exibility of
modeling notations. This paper addresses the question how much formal and computerized
support can be provided in such settings without destroying their creative tenor. Our
solution comprises four components: (1) A modular conceptual modeling formalism organizes
individual perspectives and their interrelationships. (2) Perspective schemata are linked
to a conceptual meta meta model of shared domain terms, thus giving the architecture a
semantic meaning and enabling adaptability and extensibility of the network of
perspectives. (3) Inconsistency management across perspectives is handled in a
goal-oriented man- ner, by dening the analysis goals as meta rules which are
automatically adapted to perspective schemata. (4) Continuous incremental maintenance of
inconsistency information is provided by exploiting recent view maintenance techniques
from de- ductive databases. The approach has been fully implemented as an extension to the
ConceptBase meta database management system and is currently experimentally applied in the
context of business analysis and data warehouse design.
Matthias Jarke
Appeared in
WI (Wirtschaftsinformatik) 99, Saarbrücken, 3.-5. März 1999, Springer Aktuell
Abstract
In the wake of object-oriented software engineering, use cases have gained enormous
popularity as tools for bridging the gap between electronic business management and
information systems engineering. A wide variety of practices has emerged but their
relationships to each other, and with respect to the traditional change management
process, are poorly understood. The ESPRIT Long Term Research Project CREWS (Cooperative
Requirements Engineering With Scenarios) has conducted surveys of the research literature
and of the industry practice in scenario-based requirements engineering as a basis to
develop a framework of approaches and research issues in the field. In two demonstrator
prototypes, one based on textual scenario representations, the other on multimedia scenes,
solutions to some of the most critical open problems from these surveys are being
explored. The project results, besides being integrated in leading commercial software
engineering environments, feed into a component-oriented method server on the Internet.
Matthias Jarke, X. Tung Bui, John M. Carroll
Appeared in
Requirements Engineering Journal, 1999
Abstract
Scenario management (SM) means different things to different people, even though everyone
seems to admit its current importance and its further potential. In this paper, we seek to
provide an interdisciplinary framework for SM from three major disciplines that use
scenarios - strategic management, human-computer interaction, and software and systems
engineering - to deal with description of current and future realities. In particular, we
attempt to answer to the following questions: How are scenarios developed and used in each
of the three disciplines? Why are they becoming important? What are current research
contributions in scenario management? What are the research and practical issues related
to the creation and use of scenarios, in particular in the area of requirements
engineering? Based on brainstorming techniques, this paper proposes an interdisciplinary
definition of scenarios, frameworks for scenario development, use and evaluation, and
directions for future research.
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