Today’s software systems are becoming increasingly integrated into the lives of their end-users and their ever-changing environments and needs. These demands lead to a growing complexity of systems. The development of adaptive systems is a promising way to manage this complexity. Adaptive systems are able to adapt their behavior at operation time while considering the changing operational environment to maximize the satisfaction of end-user needs. However, adaptive systems have their own challenges to overcome. Especially, requirements engineering for adaptive systems is challenging given the fact that requirements are active runtime entities and can change at runtime. Requirements engineering activities have not only to take place at design but also at runtime. Requirements engineering for adaptive systems is an emerging research area that has so far received little attention, compared to other research areas (e.g., architecture) for adaptive systems. Adaptive systems need to have a full understanding of the context in order to handle the complexity and satisfy end-user needs. Therefore, a new trend in require- ments engineering for adaptive systems emerged to document requirements with the context in which the requirements are valid. Such contextual requirements necessi- tate adaptive systems to consider and define context in order to fully understand the requirements at operation time. Further, adaptive systems must be able to cope with uncertainty inherent in a changing runtime environment. Otherwise, adaptive sys- tems will not be able to satisfy end-user needs. Therefore, after the system has been deployed, support for the evolution of contextual requirements is needed, too. The trend of considering context as part of a contextual requirement poses new challenges in the field of requirements engineering. This dissertation investigates the capture and evolution of contextual requirements for adaptive systems, which leads to three contributions: First, this dissertation presents a framework that differentiates between context and requirements as two separate entities in contextual requirements that can be captured and can be evolved independently. It is especially necessary to capture and evolve the essential context to support the ability of a system to adapt to fulfilling the needs of its end-users, whose requirements and context are constantly changing. The framework is then applied in two case studies. The first case study investi- gates the usefulness of existing requirements elicitation techniques for the elicitation of contextual requirements. This dissertation’s second contribution is the empirical evidence that existing requirement elicitation techniques can be used for the capture of contextual requirements at design time. We propose a combination of interviews, focus groups and prototyping that we found useful in eliciting contextual requirements in our case study. The second study develops and evaluates techniques to support the evolution of context when contextual requirements are validated at runtime. For this purpose we propose an approach which uses machine learning and feedback loops to support the evolution of contextual requirements and which represents the third contribution of this dissertation. / Graduate

In an increasingly changing environment, different organizations are trying to improve their agility and efficiency by improving their business processes; thus, business process management has been gaining momentum for the last decade. The first step in business process management is the modeling of business processes. Business Process Modeling (BPM), in itself, is very important because it captures business requirements, allows for better understanding of a business and its processes, facilitates communication between business analysts and IT people, and pinpoints deficiencies in processes. It also serves as a basis for automation of these processes. But business process modeling comes with its own challenges since it is a time-consuming, complicated, and error-prone task. As a result, producing a high quality, precise business process model is not easy. BPM patterns, which are general reusable solutions to commonly occurring problems in business process modeling, have been proposed to address these challenges. In this research, we conducted an exploratory study about requirements engineering practices in a large organization. This study identified key challenges in requirements engineering and showed how business process modeling is currently being conducted. Then, we created a survey of the different BPM pattern catalogs existing in the literature. Finally, we presented one of the BPM pattern catalogs in a clear format along with examples of each pattern. The ultimate objective is to allow business analysts to effectively use BPM patterns while creating precise BP models.

In this thesis, eliciting system functional requirements based on business requirements during software intensive systems acquisition or development process is investigated and an approach is proposed for this purpose. Concepts and current problems within the framework of business requirements are investigated with a general literature review of requirements engineering and technology acquisition. Determination of requirements of IT system to be acquired according to the business objectives and base lining business processes is dealt with business process modeling. ARIS providing integrated and complete information system architecture along with modeling techniques and modeling tool is also investigated. Proposed approach recommends EEPC as process modeling technique and ARIS software as supporting toolset, and explains how to conduct application of automatic requirements eliciting from business process models, by extending a reporting script provided by ARIS software. Proposed approach was partially applied to the real project and the obtained results were presented in this thesis.

Whilst numerous studies have retrospectively reported the impact of negative user emotions, motivational problems or value clashes during software developments, few Requirements Engineering (RE) studies have considered the elicitation of users’ values, motivations or emotions (VM&Es) and there is little advice for practising analysts as to how to deal with these factors. This thesis explores the impact of users’ VM&Es within RE work. The starting point was a review of the current state of analyst practice. A literature survey considered the RE guidance available to analysts on the elicitation and understanding of ‘soft issues’ such as VM&Es. In parallel, a series of interviews with 12 industry analysts sought their views on the relevance of users’ VM&Es, the impact on requirements work, and approaches to identifying such information. This study identified behaviours adopted by experienced analysts that would be useful to promote to novice analysts, and documented the analysts’ own requirements for a method to support them in eliciting VM&Es. These findings informed the design of the Value Based Requirements Engineering (VBRE) method and website (www.vbre.org.uk), intended to support requirements analysts in identifying and considering the impact of such ‘soft factors’. Research into RE method adoption highlights the importance of industry input, so a Participatory Design (PD) approach was taken in developing VBRE, iteratively evaluating and refining the method with input from practising analysts. A series of complementary evaluations of the method are presented. An experimental study investigated the method’s utility and usability with computer science undergraduate students, whilst a set of four case studies explored adoption of the VBRE method with industry analysts. The analysts used the method during their RE work, adapting the approach according to their circumstances and levels of experience. The participants credited the method with a positive impact on their RE work and the novice analysts reported feeling more confident of their abilities to handle ‘soft issues’. The key contributions of this work are:1. An exploration of the views of practising analysts as to the relevance and impact of VM&Es within their RE work.2. Development of an analysis method and support materials to aid analysts in identifying users’ VM&Es.3. A demonstration of the utility of adopting a PD approach to the development of RE methods.4. An evaluation of the use of the method in industry, exploring the use of case studies to understand how novice and expert analysts adopt and adapt the VBRE approach. This thesis is unusual in taking a PD approach to developing a solution for a RE problem: that analysts need to understand users’ VM&Es and their impact on software projects. The VBRE method attempts to address this gap, and the positive reception given by the analysts involved in evaluation of the method indicates they see utility in the approach. Future work will focus on continuing to collaborate with industry analysts to understand their use of the VBRE method, identifying improvements to the method and website, and gathering examples of the method’s impact.

Class of 2008 Abstract / Objectives: A follow-up analysis of academic and training requirements found in advertisements for pharmacy management, assistant director, and clinical pharmacy director positions. Methods: Advertisements appearing in the American Journal of Hospital Pharmacy (AJHP) were analyzed for academic and training criteria that were either preferred or required for pharmacy management, assistant director, or clinical pharmacy director positions. Included advertisements were for pertinent positions found in AJHP between January 2002 and December 2007. Some of the requirements or preferences that appeared in the advertisements that were analyzed included the type of pharmacy or other degree, postgraduate training including residencies and/or fellowships, board certification, and experience qualifications. Results: There was a total of 426 advertisements that met inclusion criteria. Results were listed in percentages of advertisements either requiring or preferring a certain qualification. A significant portion of ads sought applicants who had completed a residency (24% - pharmacy manager/director, 50% - clinical director, 47% - assistant/associate manager). Preferences and requirements of the PharmD or MS degree qualification decreased in percent from a previous study. However there was an increase in the relative number of ads pertaining to the MBA preference (9%, n=27). Conclusions: Many of the results from this study were similar to previous studies which looked at job qualifications in pharmacy manager and clinical directors. It remains evident that education, training, and experience play a major role in meeting the qualifications associated with obtaining a job as a pharmacy manager, clinical director, or associate director.

Purpose: An exploration into the application of pre-requirements specification traceability (pre-RST) practices in Information Systems (IS) projects within a retail setting. Research Design/methodology: A qualitative study in the interpretivist tradition applied within a single case study setting was selected. Findings: Awareness and value-perception emerged as the most significant challenge to overcome with recommendations for a well-considered organisational change management programme to address this. The potential impact on the trust relationship amongst requirements practitioners and participants is a factor to be addressed. More readily accessible requirements engineering guides that include pre-RST as a prominent aspect is required to raise awareness levels amongst practitioners. Practical implications: The research points to a need to raise awareness amongst practitioners through improved and more readily accessible requirements engineering guides that include pre-RST as a prominent aspect. It also highlights what to consider when embarking upon pre-RST, most prominently the need for carefully considered change management programme to tackle value-perception. Originality/value: Addressing the paucity in case study insights, this research provides an understanding of practice, awareness, value-perception and perceived challenges to pre-RST. Considerations for pre-RST implementation, including careful consideration for the trust relationship amongst requirements practitioners and participants is highlighted. Limitations: The case study was limited to eleven interviews in the retail industry and therefore may not be generalisable to other industries or general practice.

Requirements tracing is crucial for software engineering practices including change analysis, regression testing, and reverse engineering. The requirements tracing process produces a requirements traceability matrix(TM) which links high- and low-level document elements. Manually generating a TM is laborious, time consuming, and error-prone. Due to these challenges TMs are often neglected. Automated information retrieval(IR) techniques are used with some efficiency. However, in mission- or safety-critical systems a human analyst is required to vet the candidate TM. This introduces semi-automated requirements tracing, where IR methods present a candidate TM and a human analyst validates it, producing a final TM. In semi-automated tracing the focus becomes the quality of the final TM. This thesis expands upon the research of Cuddeback et al. by examining how human analysts interact with candidate TMs. We conduct two experiments, one using an automated tracing tool and the other using manual validation. We conduct formal statistical analysis to determine the key factors impacting the analyst’s tracing performance. Additionally, we conduct a pilot study investigating how analysts interact with TMs generated by automated IR methods. Our research statistically confirms the finding of Cuddeback et al. that the strongest impact on analyst performance is the initial TM quality. Finally we show evidence that applying local filters to IR results produce the best candidate TMs.

Context: Requirements Engineering (RE) research has established a common agreement on the impact that the quality of requirements has on subsequent software development activities and artifacts. Furthermore, empirical investigations suppose that RE quality defects tend to scale in cost for remediation when left unattended. This motivates the need for requirements quality assurance. Problem: This need has been met with requirements quality research, which abounds with publications proposing writing rules and guidelines that are meant to ensure requirements of high quality. However, recent studies have questioned the rigor and relevance of these publications, which would undermine the practical applicability of requirements quality research: requirements quality is a means to an end and serves a specific purpose (i.e., minimizing the emitted risk on downstream activities), but when this purpose is not met due to lack of a rigor and practical relevance, the approach to researching requirements quality needs to be rethought. Aim: The notion of good-enough requirements engineering constitutes a context-sensitive, activity-based perspective on requirements quality. In this thesis, we aim at both (1) understanding and (2) exploring possibilities of operationalizing this notion. Methods: We employ a mixed-methods approach to achieve our aim. We use theory adoption in order to provide a theoretical foundation for requirements quality research, conduct a survey to understand the level of theory adherence in the requirements quality literature, and perform subject-based classification to generate an overview of theory-related elements proposed in literature.  Results: Through theory adoption we derive a harmonized, activity-based requirements quality theory that frames requirements quality according to its impact on subsequent activities and hence ensures its relevance. The subsequent survey confirms that there is a lack of rigor and relevance in previous requirements quality publications, which likely explains the lack of adoption of the research in practice. The overview of quality factors in a subject-based classification is a first step to centralize requirements quality research for visibility and effective reuse. Conclusion: The notion of good-enough requirements engineering has the potential to re-focus requirements quality research on a more profound notion of rigor and relevance. In this thesis, we report on a first requirements quality theory. Through adherence to this requirements quality theory and contribution to the central repository of subject-based classification, the operationalization of the concept of good-enough requirements engineering can effectively support predicting the impact that requirements quality has on subsequent software development activities in the future.

Requirements are important in software development, product development, projects, processes, and systems. However, a review of the requirements literature indicates several problems. First, there is confusion between the terms ?requirements engineering? and ?requirements management.? Similarities and/or differences between the two terms are resolved through a literature review; resulting in comprehensive definitions of each term. Second, current literature recognizes the importance of requirements but offers few methodologies or solutions for defining and managing requirements. Hence, a flexible methodology or framework is provided for defining and managing requirements. Third, requirements methodologies are represented in various ways, each with their respective strengths and weaknesses. A tabular view and hybrid graphical view for representing the requirements process are provided.

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