The agile principles applied to software engineering include iterative and incremental development, frequent releases of software, direct stakeholder involvement, minimal documentation and welcome changing requirements even late in the development cycle. The Agile Requirements Engineering applies the above mentioned principles to the Requirements Engineering process. Agile Requirements Engineering welcomes changing requirements even late in the development cycle. This is achieved by using the agile practice of evolutionary requirements which suggests that requirements should evolve over the course of many iterations rather than being gathered and specified upfront. Hence, changes to requirements even late in the development cycle can be accommodated easily. There is however, no real process to the agile approach to Requirements Engineering. In order to overcome this disadvantage, we propose to adapt the Requirements Generation Model (a plan-driven Requirements Engineering model) to an agile environment in order to structure the Agile Requirements Engineering process. The hybrid model named the Agile Requirements Generation Model is a soft-structured process that supports the intents of the agile approach. This model combines the best features of the Requirements Generation Model and Agile Software Development. / Master of Science

[pt] Os defeitos nas especificações de requisitos podem ter consequências graves durante o ciclo de vida de desenvolvimento de software. Alguns deles resultam em uma falha geral do projeto devido a características de qualidade incorretas ou ausentes, como segurança. Existem várias preocupações que tornam a segurança difícil de lidar; por exemplo, (1) quando as partes interessadas discutem os requisitos gerais nas reuniões, muitas vezes não estão cientes que também devem discutir tópicos relacionados à segurança. (2) Normalmente as equipes de desenvolvimento não possuem conhecimentos de segurança suficientes. Isto geralmente leva a aspectos de segurança não especificados ou mal definidos. Essas preocupações tornam-se ainda mais desafiadoras em contextos de desenvolvimento ágil, nos quais a documentação leve geralmente está envolvida. O objetivo desta dissertação é projetar e avaliar uma abordagem para suportar a revisão de aspectos relacionados à segurança em especificações de requisitos ágeis de aplicativos web. A abordagem projetada considera estórias de usuário e especificações de segurança como entradas e relaciona essas estórias de usuário a propriedades de segurança através de técnicas de Processamento de Linguagem Natural. Com base nas propriedades de segurança relacionadas, nossa abordagem identifica os requisitos de segurança de alto nível do OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) a serem verificados e gera uma técnica de leitura focada para dar suporte aos revisores na detecção de defeitos. Avaliamos nossa abordagem rodando dois experimentos controlados. Comparamos a eficácia e a eficiência de inspetores novatos que verificam aspectos de segurança em requisitos ágeis usando nossa técnica de leitura contra o uso da lista completa de requisitos de segurança de alto nível do OWASP. Os resultados (estatisticamente significativos) indicam que o uso da nossa abordagem tem um impacto positivo (com tamanho de efeito muito grande) no desempenho dos inspetores em termos de eficácia e eficiência. / [en] Defects in requirements specifications can have severe consequences during the software development life cycle. Some of them result in overall project failure due to incorrect or missing quality characteristics such as security. There are several concerns that make security difficult to deal with; for instance, (1) when stakeholders discuss general requirements in (review) meetings, they are often not aware that they should also discuss security-related topics, and (2) they typically do not have enough expertise in security. This often leads to unspecified or ill-defined security aspects. These concerns become even more challenging in agile development contexts, where lightweight documentation is typically involved. The goal of this dissertation is to design and evaluate an approach to support reviewing security-related aspects in agile requirements specifications of web applications. The designed approach considers user stories and security specifications as input and relates those user stories to security properties via Natural Language Processing (NLP). Based on the related security properties, our approach then identifies high-level security requirements from the Open Web Application Security Project (OWASP) to be verified and generates a focused reading technique to support reviewers in detecting defects. We evaluate our approach via two controlled experiment trials. We compare the effectiveness and efficiency of novice inspectors verifying security aspects in agile requirements using our reading technique against using the complete list of OWASP high-level security requirements. The (statistically significant) results indicate that using our approach has a positive impact (with very large effect size) on the performance of inspectors in terms of effectiveness and efficiency.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-12-17T15:48:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 AlineOPJ_DISSERT.pdf: 1977050 bytes, checksum: f61ea891da8fcdd8f7fc75d704edb944 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-03-01 / The activity of requirements engineering is seen in agile methods as bureaucratic activity making the process less agile. However, the lack of documentation in agile development environment is identified as one of the main challenges of the methodology. Thus, it is observed that there is a contradiction between what agile methodology claims and the result, which occurs in the real environment. For example, in agile methods the user stories are widely used to describe requirements. However, this way of describing requirements is still not enough, because the user stories is an artifact too narrow to represent and detail the requirements. The activities of verifying issues like software context and dependencies between stories are also limited with the use of only this artifact. In the context of requirements engineering there are goal oriented approaches that bring benefits to the requirements documentation, including, completeness of requirements, analysis of alternatives and support to the rationalization of requirements. Among these approaches, it excels the i * modeling technique that provides a graphical view of the actors involved in the system and their dependencies. This work is in the context of proposing an additional resource that aims to reduce this lack of existing documentation in agile methods. Therefore, the objective of this work is to provide a graphical view of the software requirements and their relationships through i * models, thus enriching the requirements in agile methods. In order to do so, we propose a set of heuristics to perform the mapping of the requirements presented as user stories in i * models. These models can be used as a form of documentation in agile environment, because by mapping to i * models, the requirements will be viewed more broadly and with their proper relationships according to the business environment that they will meet / A atividade de engenharia de requisitos ? vista nos m?todos ?geis como atividade burocr?tica tornando o processo menos ?gil. No entanto, a falta de documenta??o no ambiente de desenvolvimento ?gil ? apontada como um dos principais desafios da metodologia. Assim, observa-se a exist?ncia de um contrassenso entre o que a metodologia ?gil defende e o resultado que ocorre no ambiente real. Por exemplo, nos m?todos ?geis as hist?rias de usu?rio s?o a forma mais usual para descrever requisitos. No entanto, essa maneira de descrever requisitos ainda n?o ? suficiente, pois as hist?rias de usu?rio constituem um artefato muito restrito para representar e detalhar os requisitos. As atividades de verificar quest?es como o contexto do software e depend?ncias entre as hist?rias tamb?m s?o limitadas com o uso somente desse artefato. No contexto de engenharia de requisitos existem as abordagens orientadas a metas que trazem vantagens para a documenta??o de requisitos, entre elas, completude dos requisitos, an?lise de alternativas e suporte ? racionaliza??o de requisitos. Dentre essas abordagens destaca-se a t?cnica de modelagem i* que fornece uma vis?o gr?fica dos atores envolvidos no sistema e suas depend?ncias. Esta disserta??o prop?e um recurso complementar para diminuir essa car?ncia de documenta??o existente nos m?todos ?geis. Assim, o objetivo deste trabalho ? fornecer uma vis?o gr?fica dos requisitos do software e seus relacionamentos atrav?s de modelos i*, enriquecendo assim os requisitos nos m?todos ?geis. Para isso prop?e-se um conjunto de heur?sticas para realizar o mapeamento dos requisitos representados como hist?rias de usu?rio em modelos i*. Esses modelos poder?o ser utilizados como uma forma de documenta??o dos requisitos no ambiente ?gil, pois atrav?s do mapeamento para os modelos i*, os requisitos ser?o visualizados de maneira mais abrangente e com seus devidos relacionamentos de acordo com o ambiente de neg?cio que v?o atender

Kravhantering inom systemutveckling utgör basen för vad som ska utvecklas. Agila systemutvecklingsmetoder blir vanligare för varje dag som går. Det har dock ofta visat sig finnas utmaningar med hur man anpassar just kravhanteringen till de agila metoderna. Verksamheter har olika förutsättningar för att arbeta agilt. Lantmäteriet i Gävle uttryckte ett behov att undersöka varför den agila praxis man hade inte följdes av alla utvecklingsteam i samband med kravhanteringen. Syftet med denna uppsats var därför att undersöka varför vissa utvecklingteam i en verksamhet arbetade agilt med sin kravhantering medan vissa inte gjorde det. För att undersöka detta utförde jag en fallstudie där jag med hjälp av enkäter och intervjuer samlade in data från både utvecklare och personer på verksamhetssidan som var inblandade i kravhanteringen. Resultaten visade att orsakerna till att en agil kravhantering fungerade så olika var flera. Genom att använda en tematisk analys kunde jag urskilja några framträdande orsaker. Kommunikation och flexibilitet samt kunskap och förståelse för olika perspektiv var teman som utgjorde positiva faktorer. De teman som istället utgjorde negativa faktorer var bland andra otydliga roller, brist på direktiv, en övertro till metoder och processer, osynk mellan verksamhet och IT, prioriteringsproblem, förvaltningsplaner, attityder och IT-arkitektur. / Requirements engineering within software development is the foundation of what needs to be developed. Agile methods in software development become more common every day. It has however often been shown that there are certain challenges with how to adopt the requirements engineering to the agile methodology. Businesses have different preconditions for agile methods. Lantmäteriet in Gävle had a need to examine why not all the developing teams followed agile methods within the requirements engineering process. The purpose with this thesis was thus to examine why some developing teams in an organization worked in an agile manner with the requirements engineering, and some did not. To do this I performed a case study where I collected data through questionnaires and interviews from both developers and people from the business side. The results showed that the reasons for these differences were multiple. Communication and flexibility, and knowledge and understanding for different perspectives were the positive factors. The themes that hindered an agile way of working were, among others, unclear roles, lack of direction, too much reliance on methods and processes, discrepancy between business and IT, prioritizing issues, management plans, attitudes and IT architecture.

The agile manifesto has certainly changed the way software is produced in the Information Communications Technology (ICT) industry. However, many persistent challenges cripple agile software development. One challenge is that the constant change in technology makes the requirements hard to implement. Another is that issues of the agile requirements engineering (ARE) process are abundant and pervasive throughout software projects. The aim of this study is to determine common issues in agile requirements engineering in the South African software industry and identify tools and frameworks to mitigate risks emanating from such problems. This includes finding out how much value software practitioners put in the agile principles. This study was essentially quantitative, based on a cross-sectional survey. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect required data which was then subjected to exploratory data analysis using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences), a tool for statistical analysis. The results show that software practitioners have a strong penchant for principles of the Agile Manifesto. Major issues in agile requirements engineering include lack of proper validation tools and techniques, scope problems, lack of proper documentation, issues of prioritisation, as well as unavailability of customer representative. A detailed baseline of issues in agile requirements engineering was created along with a set of recommended tools and techniques used in the software industry. As for the recommendation, it is suggested that companies invest more on validation tools and techniques and consider non-functional requirements integration during software development. / School of Computing / M. Sc. (Computing)

Hanteringen av krav är en essentiell del för att lyckas leverera det som kunden efterfrågar hos ett system. Flertalet forskare pekar på att ett misslyckat IT-projekt grundar sig i felhantering av krav. Kringliggande faktorer som påverkar kravhanteringen har identifierats som kommunikation och dokumentation. Syftet är att undersöka de utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer som förekommer inom agil kravhantering, med avseende på arbetet enligt SAFe. För att kunna identifiera utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer tillämpas empirisk datainsamling, kompletterad med befintlig teori. Undersökningens metod har genomförts i enlighet med en kvalitativ forskningsstrategi, där fem semistrukturerade intervjuer har tillämpats vid den empiriska datainsamlingen. Den kvalitativa studien har använt sig av en abduktiv forskningsansats, detta i syfte att pendla mellan empiri och befintlig teori. Urvalet som har tillämpats i denna undersökning använder en konfidalitet och har tilldelats fiktiva namn, med anledning av att säkerställa trygghet hos respondenterna. Den insamlade empirin har analyserats och diskuterats utifrån befintlig teori som är relevant och stärker undersökningens trovärdighet. Utmaningar som vi har identifierat inom arbetet enligt SAFe är bland annat kopplat till prioritering och anpassning till organisationen. Resultatet påvisar även utmaningar gällande planeringen, med anledning av de långa cyklerna, likaså är anpassningen till den agila rytmen inom alla avdelningar hos organisationen en utmanande aspekt i arbetet. Våran undersökning har påvisat att SAFe har medfört gynnsamma fördelar med organisationens arbete, bland annat förbättrad transparens genom en ökad insikt i varandras arbeten. Likaså visar vår undersökning att den agila kravhanteringen har bidragit med gynnsamma fördelar i hur kraven hanteras, där sprintar och små leveranser är centralt inom arbetet. Beträffande empiri kontra befintlig teori, påvisas likheter och skillnader som bör betraktas, de utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer som förekommer inom empirin är omtalade i befintlig teori. Däremot presenterar befintlig teori endast generella aspekter som förekommer i det agila arbetet. Empirin bekräftar de utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer som omnämnas i befintlig teori, men är mer i linje med respondentorganisationens situation och verklighet. De slutsatser som vi har kommit fram till är att befintlig teori presenterar övergripande aspekter utan någon specifik anknytning till en organisations situation. Empirin visar att SAFe har anpassats för att möta respondentorganisationens behov, där teoretiska utmaningar och framgångsfaktorer har bekräftats och kompletterats. / The management of requirements is an essential part of successfully delivering what the customer demands from a system. The majority of researchers point out that a failed IT project is based on mishandling of requirements. Surrounding factors that affect requirements management have been identified as communication and documentation. The purpose is to investigate the challenges and success factors that occur within agile requirements management, with regard to the work according to SAFe. In order to identify challenges and success factors, empirical data collection is applied, supplemented with existing theory. The survey's method has been carried out in accordance with a qualitative research strategy, where five semi-structured interviews have been applied to the empirical data collection. The qualitative study has used an abductive research approach, with the aim of commuting between empiricism and existing theory. The sample that has been applied in this survey uses a confidentiality and has been assigned fictitious names, due to the safety of the respondents. The collected empirical evidence has been analyzed and discussed based on existing theory that is relevant and strengthened the credibility of the investigation. Challenges that we have identified within the work according to SAFe are, among other things, linked to prioritization and adaptation to the organization. The result also shows challenges regarding the planning, due to the long cycles, as well as the adaptation to the agile rhythm within all departments of the organization and challenging aspects in the work. Our investigation has shown that SAFe has brought favorable benefits to the organization's work, including improved transparency through and increased insight into each other's work. Likewise, our thesis shows that the agile requirements management has contributed with favorable advantages in how the requirements are handled, where sprints and small deliveries are central to the work. Regarding empiricism versus existing theory, similarities and differences that should be considered are demonstrated, the challenges and success factors that occur within empiricism are discussed in existing theory. In contrast, existing theory only presents general aspects that occur in agile work. The empirical evidence confirms the challenges and success factors mentioned in existing theory, but is more in line with the respondent organization's situation and reality. The conclusions we have reached are that existing theories present overall aspects without any specific connection to an organization's situation. The empirical evidence shows that SAFe has been adapted to meet the needs of the respondent organization, where theoretical challenges and success factors have been confirmed and supplemented.