abstract: Gathering and managing software requirements, known as Requirement Engineering (RE), is a significant and basic step during the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). Any error or defect during the RE step will propagate to further steps of SDLC and resolving it will be more costly than any defect in other steps. In order to produce better quality software, the requirements have to be free of any defects. Verification and Validation (V&V;) of requirements are performed to improve their quality, by performing the V&V; process on the Software Requirement Specification (SRS) document. V&V; of the software requirements focused to a specific domain helps in improving quality. A large database of software requirements from software projects of different domains is created. Software requirements from commercial applications are focus of this project; other domains embedded, mobile, E-commerce, etc. can be the focus of future efforts. The V&V; is done to inspect the requirements and improve the quality. Inspections are done to detect defects in the requirements and three approaches for inspection of software requirements are discussed; ad-hoc techniques, checklists, and scenario-based techniques. A more systematic domain-specific technique is presented for performing V&V; of requirements. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.C.St. Computing Studies 2012

Kravhantering vid agil mjukvaruutveckling är en utmaning som allt fler företag ställs inför.Prototyper, modeller som liknar tilltänkta slutprodukter, kan användas för att inhämtaviktig information om det som ska utvecklas. För att beskriva hur lik en prototyp är dentilltänkta slutprodukten används begreppet verklighetsfaktor. Studiens syfte är dels attöka kunskapen kring prototypanvändning i agil mjukvaruutveckling, dels att undersökavilken effekt en prototyps verklighetsfaktor har då prototyper används i diskussioner inomkravhantering. En fallstudie görs på företaget Exsitec där personal intervjuas angående prototypanvändning i mjukvaruprojekt. Två prototyper utvecklas sedan med låg respekti-ve hög verklighetsfaktor och används som diskussionsunderlag i intervjuer. Studien visar att användning av prototyper i mjukvaruprojekt kan bidra till ökat förtroende hos kun-der, förbättrad kommunikation med kunder och kan förenkla att uppnå konsensus mellan olika intressenter. Vidare kan de, beroende av hur de används, bidra till helhetsbilden avprodukten och fungera som dokumentation. Studien påvisar även några, om än subtila, skillnader i den information som samlas in med hjälp av prototyper med låg respekti-ve hög verklighetsfaktor. Hög verklighetsfaktor tycks medföra att fler krav samlas in, men göra respondenter mindre benägna att vilja komma med förslag på mer omfattandeförändringar. / Requirements Engineering (RE) in Agile Software Development (ASD) is a challenge thatmany face and several techniques exist when doing so. One such technique is prototyping, when a model of a product is used to gather important information in software develop-ment. To describe how much a prototype resembles the product the notion of fidelity is used. The aim of this study is to contribute to research regarding prototyping in ASD,and to examine the effect of a prototype’s fidelity when using prototypes in discussionsduring RE. A case study is performed at the company Exsitec where staff are interviewedregarding prototyping in software development. Thereafter, two prototypes of low andhigh fidelity are developed and used in interviews as a basis for discussion. Based on thisstudy, the use of prototypes in software projects can help customers trust the process,improve communication with customers, and facilitate when trying to reach consensusamong different stakeholders. Furthermore, depending on how they are used, prototypescan contribute to understanding the big picture of the requirements and can also serve asdocumentation. The study also shows some, albeit subtle, differences in the informationcollected using prototypes with low and high fidelity. The use of a high fidelity prototypeseems to generate more requirements, but makes interviewees less likely to come up withlarger, more comprehensive requirement changes.

Vários são os problemas que afligem o desenvolvimento de software. Estes problemas, que originaram a crise do software nos anos 60, perduram ate hoje. Praticas de Engenharia de Software tem sido adotadas em todas as fases do ciclo de vida para tentar minimizá-los. A etapa de definição de requisitos é considerada como a atividade mais importante, decisiva e ao mesmo tempo critica do desenvolvimento de software, principalmente no que diz respeito a elicitação. A Engenharia de Requisitos é a disciplina que procura sistematizar o processo de definir requisitos. Muitas vezes os sistemas de informação das organizações são complexos e/ou informais, apresentando características que dificultam o seu entendimento. Além disso, a maioria das metodologias existentes não enfatiza a aquisição de conhecimento sobre o problema a ser resolvido. Este trabalho apresenta um método para auxiliar a aquisição de conhecimento de sistemas de informação, bem como sua representação e validação. O método proposto, que tem a finalidade de sistematizar uma tarefa anterior a definição de requisitos do software, ou seja, é um método de apoio a elicitação de requisitos, inclui as etapas de elicitação, modelagem e validação. Na etapa de elicitação é feita a aquisição de conhecimento dos fatos e das situações que compõem o sistema de informações vigente, utilizando para isso, técnicas como entrevistas, observações e uma abordagem baseada em etnografia. Para guiar esta etapa foi elaborada uma sistematização combinando as técnicas anteriormente citadas. No final da etapa de elicitação são produzidas representações textuais dos objetos elicitados e o Léxico Ampliado da Linguagem, que descreve a linguagem da aplicação em estudo. A partir dessas representações é feita a modelagem através de Workflow. Na etapa de validação, as representações produzidas pelas etapas de elicitação e modelagem são validadas junto aos atores do sistema de informação. A partir das representações produzidas o engenheiro de requisitos poderá definir os requisitos funcionais do software a ser construído. A aplicação do método é adequada para ambientes que já possuem um sistema de informação definido, seja ele formal ou informal. O método proposto foi aplicado a uma situação real e parte deste estudo de caso é apresentado neste trabalho. / There are many problems in software development. These problems, which had started the software crisis in the 1960s, still exist. Software Engineering practices have been adopted in all fases of the life cycle as an attempt to minimize them. The requirements definition is considered the most important, decisive and difficult activity in software development, particularly the elicitation of the system requirements. The Requirements Engineering is the discipline that try to sistematize the requirements definition process. Information systems are often complexes, informals and present features that make difficult to understand them. Besides, most of the existing metodologies do not handle procedures for knowledge acquisition about the problem to be solved. This work proposes a method to help knowledge acquisition of information systems, and also representation and validation of the acquired knowledge. The proposal method which support the requirements elicitation, anticipate the software requirements definition process. The method includes three stages: elicitation, modeling and validation. The elicitation stage comprises knowledge acquisition of the facts and situations of the information system, through the application of techniques such as interviews, observations and a based approach on ethnography. Textual representations are produced at the end of the elicitation stage to represent the elicited objects. The Language Extended Lexicon, which describe the language used in the information system, is also produced in this stage. In the modeling stage workflow representations are produced based on those initial representations. In the validation stage all the representations produced are validated by the actors working on the information system. Based on those representations the requirements engineer can define the functional software requirements. The method can be applied to environments where a defined information systems exists. The proposal method was applied in a real world situation and part of this case study is presented in this work.

Submitted by Kleber Silva (kleberbs@ufba.br) on 2017-06-01T20:36:17Z No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_Thesis_Final_v01.pdf: 25381943 bytes, checksum: cf9b5a7ab05c5f433c6abe06c7c8815e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Vanessa Reis (vanessa.jamile@ufba.br) on 2017-06-07T11:38:56Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_Thesis_Final_v01.pdf: 25381943 bytes, checksum: cf9b5a7ab05c5f433c6abe06c7c8815e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-07T11:38:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 2015_Thesis_Final_v01.pdf: 25381943 bytes, checksum: cf9b5a7ab05c5f433c6abe06c7c8815e (MD5) / Software Product Line (SPL) has emerged as an important strategy to cope with the increasing demand of large-scale products customization. SPL has provided companies with an efficient and effective means of delivering products with higher quality at a lower cost, when compared to traditional software engineering strategies. However, such benefits do not come for free. There is a necessity in SPL to deal with the evolution of its assets to support changes within the environment and user needs. These changes in SPL are firstly represented by requirements. Thus, SPL should manage the commonality and variability of products by means of a “Requirements Engineering (RE) - change management” process. Hence, besides dealing with the reuse and evolution of requirements in an SPL, the RE for SPL also needs an approach to represent explicitly the commonality and variability information (e.g., through feature models and use cases). To understand the evolution in SPL, this Thesis presents two empirical studies within industrial SPL projects and a systematic mapping study on SPL evolution. The two empirical studies evaluated Lehman’s laws of software evolution in two industrial SPL projects,demonstrating that most of the laws are supported by SPL environments. The systematic mapping study on SPL evolution identified approaches in the area and revealed gaps for researching, such as, that most of the proposed approaches perform the evolution of SPL requirements in an ad-hoc way and were evaluated through feasibility studies. These results led to systematize, through guidelines, the SPL processes by starting with the SPL requirements. Thus, it was proposed an approach to specify SPL requirements called Feature-Driven Requirements Engineering (FeDRE). FeDRE specifies SPL requirements in a systematic way driven by a feature model. To deal with the evolution of FeDRE requirements, a new approach called Feature-Driven Requirements Engineering Evolution (FeDRE2) was presented. FeDRE2 is responsible for guiding, in a systematic way, the SPL evolution based on activities from RE. Both proposed approaches, FeDRE and and FeDRE2, were evaluated and the results, besides being preliminaries, shown that the approaches were perceived as easy to use and also useful, coping with the improvement and systematization of SPL processes.

Vários são os problemas que afligem o desenvolvimento de software. Estes problemas, que originaram a crise do software nos anos 60, perduram ate hoje. Praticas de Engenharia de Software tem sido adotadas em todas as fases do ciclo de vida para tentar minimizá-los. A etapa de definição de requisitos é considerada como a atividade mais importante, decisiva e ao mesmo tempo critica do desenvolvimento de software, principalmente no que diz respeito a elicitação. A Engenharia de Requisitos é a disciplina que procura sistematizar o processo de definir requisitos. Muitas vezes os sistemas de informação das organizações são complexos e/ou informais, apresentando características que dificultam o seu entendimento. Além disso, a maioria das metodologias existentes não enfatiza a aquisição de conhecimento sobre o problema a ser resolvido. Este trabalho apresenta um método para auxiliar a aquisição de conhecimento de sistemas de informação, bem como sua representação e validação. O método proposto, que tem a finalidade de sistematizar uma tarefa anterior a definição de requisitos do software, ou seja, é um método de apoio a elicitação de requisitos, inclui as etapas de elicitação, modelagem e validação. Na etapa de elicitação é feita a aquisição de conhecimento dos fatos e das situações que compõem o sistema de informações vigente, utilizando para isso, técnicas como entrevistas, observações e uma abordagem baseada em etnografia. Para guiar esta etapa foi elaborada uma sistematização combinando as técnicas anteriormente citadas. No final da etapa de elicitação são produzidas representações textuais dos objetos elicitados e o Léxico Ampliado da Linguagem, que descreve a linguagem da aplicação em estudo. A partir dessas representações é feita a modelagem através de Workflow. Na etapa de validação, as representações produzidas pelas etapas de elicitação e modelagem são validadas junto aos atores do sistema de informação. A partir das representações produzidas o engenheiro de requisitos poderá definir os requisitos funcionais do software a ser construído. A aplicação do método é adequada para ambientes que já possuem um sistema de informação definido, seja ele formal ou informal. O método proposto foi aplicado a uma situação real e parte deste estudo de caso é apresentado neste trabalho. / There are many problems in software development. These problems, which had started the software crisis in the 1960s, still exist. Software Engineering practices have been adopted in all fases of the life cycle as an attempt to minimize them. The requirements definition is considered the most important, decisive and difficult activity in software development, particularly the elicitation of the system requirements. The Requirements Engineering is the discipline that try to sistematize the requirements definition process. Information systems are often complexes, informals and present features that make difficult to understand them. Besides, most of the existing metodologies do not handle procedures for knowledge acquisition about the problem to be solved. This work proposes a method to help knowledge acquisition of information systems, and also representation and validation of the acquired knowledge. The proposal method which support the requirements elicitation, anticipate the software requirements definition process. The method includes three stages: elicitation, modeling and validation. The elicitation stage comprises knowledge acquisition of the facts and situations of the information system, through the application of techniques such as interviews, observations and a based approach on ethnography. Textual representations are produced at the end of the elicitation stage to represent the elicited objects. The Language Extended Lexicon, which describe the language used in the information system, is also produced in this stage. In the modeling stage workflow representations are produced based on those initial representations. In the validation stage all the representations produced are validated by the actors working on the information system. Based on those representations the requirements engineer can define the functional software requirements. The method can be applied to environments where a defined information systems exists. The proposal method was applied in a real world situation and part of this case study is presented in this work.

Esta pesquisa do campo da Engenharia de Software explora a aplicação do conceito de padrões no tratamento dos problemas da fase inicial da produção de software. Essa fase visa à compreensão do problema com objetivo de sugerir uma solução viável ao projeto. A área que estuda esses fenômenos é conhecida como Engenharia de Requisitos, e a fase que compreende o levantamento das necessidades dos usuários e dos sistemas denomina-se \"elicitação\". No desenvolvimento deste trabalho, é aplicada a pesquisa-ação como método de pesquisa. Foram selecionadas três empresas do ramo comercial em segmentos diferentes, através da técnica de observação e análise das atividades aplicadas na elicitação de requisitos, contidas no processo de construção de software nessas organizações. A abordagem teórica se limitou aos conceitos essenciais da Engenharia de Requisitos, com ênfase na fase de elicitação de requisitos, uma exploração sobre padrões, apresentando suas características e as diversas aplicações na padronização da solução geral para problemas complexos. Essencialmente, a pesquisa sugere um catálogo de padrões candidatos, aplicável ao processo de elicitação de requisitos. Cada padrão é extraído dos documentos de requisitos construídos com base em estudo de campo realizado. São organizados por tipo de requisitos e organizados em um gabarito proposto pelo pesquisador. Posteriormente, são relacionados de acordo com suas afinidades e preocupações, transformando-os dessa maneira em um catálogo de padrões devido a sua classificação e sumarização. Por fim, o pesquisador apresenta as conclusões e desenvolve as críticas acerca do catálogo de padrões, sugere melhorias, indica as limitações, e aponta as contribuições relativas à redução da complexidade na execução da atividade de elicitação de requisitos com a possibilidade de se antecipar ao problema que provavelmente o analista ou engenheiro de requisitos irá enfrentar. / This research in the Software Engineering field explores the application of the patterns concept in the treatment of initial phase problems in software production. This phase aims at understanding the problem with the objective of suggesting a viable solution to the project. The area that studies those phenomena is known as Requirements Engineering and the phase that comprehends the detection of users needs and the systems needs is called \"elicitation\". In the development of this work the research-action is applied as research method. Three commercial companies branch were selected in different segments, through the observation technique and analysis of applied activities in requirements elicitation, contained in construction process of software in these organizations. The theoretical approach was limited to essential concepts of Requirements Engineering with emphasis in the phase of requirements elicitation, an exploration on patterns, to show the characteristics and the several applications in patterns of general solution for complex problems. Essentially, the research suggests a pattern catalog, containing candidates for requirements elicitation process. Each pattern is extracted from requirements documents built based on field studies implemented. They are organized by requirements type in a format proposed by the researcher. Then, they are related to each other according to their similitarities and concerns, transforming them in a pattern catalog due to their classification and summarization. Finally, the researcher presents the conclusions and develops critics concerning the patterns catalog, suggesting improvements, establishing restrictions, as well as pointing out the relative contributions to the reduction of complexity in the execution of the requirements elicitation activity with possibility of anticipating problems that will be presumably be detected by the analyst or requirements engineer.

Context. Requirements play vital role in building the software application.These requirements are of two types: Functional requirements andNon-functional requirements (or quality requirements). Many of the organizationsconsider only functional requirements during the early stages ofdevelopment cycle. Poor management of the non-functional requirementsmay affect factors such as success rate, project cost and standards of thebuilding product. So it is important to manage the quality requirements inthe right phase at the right time. Our thesis mainly concentrates on fivequality aspects of Requirements Engineering Process. The quality aspectsElicitation, Quality Requirements Metrics, Dependencies, Cost Estimationand Prioritization.We have concentrated on whether there are any changesin the focus on the quality requirements depending on the quality aspectsof requirement engineering process and in identifying which quality requirementis analysed at each of the five quality aspects depending on the functionalrequirements. And we also tried to identify the challenges faced bythe organizations due to handling of quality requirements at each of the fivequality aspects of the requirement engineering process in order to provideuseful information to the further studies to this problem. Objectives. In this thesis, we investigated how the quality requirementsare handled and managed in the 5 quality aspects of requirements engineeringprocess. The main objectives in this thesis are: To identify if the focus on quality requirements change with respect to tothe quality aspects of RE process. To identify a correlation between focusing on certain functional requirementand the resulting type of quality requirement i.e.; impact onquality requirements based on selected functional requirement. To identify the challenges faced by the organizations when focusing onthe quality requirements in each of quality aspects mentioned earlier. Methods. In this thesis study we first conducted a Systematic LiteratureReview (SLR) through Snowballing process to identify available literatureabout functional and non-functional requirements. Later Narrative analysiswas used to analyse the SLR results. Further an industrial survey wasconducted. Statistical analysis was performed, chi-square test of significancewas used to analyse the results. Results. The results for the research questions of this thesis are observedentirely through survey results. Data that is collected through SLR is usedto validate the obtained results. From the survey responses, it is observedthat among the five quality aspects that are identified through SLR, qualitymetrics is given more importance by large number of organisations and isfollowed by cost estimation. It is observed that elicitation is identified byless number of respondents. It is also observed that more number of respondentssuggested that there will not be any change in the focus of qualityrequirements depending on the quality aspects of RE process. It is identifiedthat there is a high impact of the selection of functional requirementson the quality requirements as per the survey results and majority of therespondents stated that the selection of quality requirements is dependenton the functional requirements. It is interesting that from the survey results,it is identified that almost half of the respondents’ organisations aretreating functional requirements equally and half of them are treating separately.Several challenges that may arise while implementing the qualityrequirements are also identified through both SLR and survey. Conclusions. This thesis help the further researches to get a detailed ideaon quality requirements, their usage in the organisations and the challengesfaced by them while implementing quality requirements. As this study involvedseveral observations that are related to the influence of functionalrequirements on quality requirements and the relation between the managementof quality requirements and RE process, it serves as a reference forfurther studies on quality requirements and gives scope to derive many newideas related to the maintenance of quality requirements. This work can befurther improved by considering large population of survey.

No desenvolvimento de um sistema que envolve Software e Hardware, muitas vezes, o que se tem é uma idéia muito vaga sobre o que será feito. Neste sentido, a Engenharia de Requisitos (ER) foi criada para fazer a ligação entre o que o cliente deseja e o que será implantado. O processo de ER sempre foi destacado na literatura por fornecer uma decomposição não linear em relação a ER que cobre desde a concepção inicial do projeto até a especificação dos requisitos. Apesar de estudos sobre o uso da ER indicarem um grande ganho em relação ao desenvolvimento de projetos em termos de prazo de entrega do projeto e qualidade dos produtos finais, muito pouco foi feito a respeito de justificar ao cliente o esforço gasto até a especificação. Nesse sentido, uma análise do custo do processo de ER torna-se importante. Mas, para determinar o custo do processo de ER, deve-se lançar mão de um sistema de custeio em que as atividades são os principais fatores para se fazer uma análise mais adequada. Dessa forma, o sistema de custeio baseado em atividades (ou Activity Based Costing (ABC)) é uma maneira de chegar ao objetivo de fornecer um sistema de custeio adequado ao processo de ER. Assim, este trabalho visa aplicar os conceitos do sistema ABC para todo o processo de ER. Este estudo sugere que o uso do ABC para um processo de ER bem estruturado pode direcionar a uma estimativa de custo mais realística. / During a software and hardware system development, in many times, there is a very opaque idea about what it will be done. In this case, the concept of Requirements Engineering (RE) was created in order to bridge the gap between what the client wishes and what will be implemented. The RE process is always highlighted on the literature as a mean to provide a non-linear decomposition of the RE which cover from an initial conception of the project to the requirements specification. Despite of studies related to the using of the RE have shown reduction of delivery time of projects and quality gain in the final products, very few have been done to justify to the client all effort until the system specification has finished. In this sense, a cost analysis of the RE process become important. However, in order to estimate a cost of the RE process, it is necessary to use an accounting system which activities are the main factor to provide an accurate analysis from them. In this case, an activity-based costing (ABC) system can provide a way to give an accounting system which is suited to the RE process. Therefore, the goal of the present work is to apply the ABC concepts to the whole RE process. The present work suggests that a well structured RE process can indicate a best actual cost estimation.

A oferta de bens e serviços para atendimento da demanda dos consumidores atuais tem uma forte base na personalização, ou seja, na busca da satisfação individual dos clientes. Essa tem sido a forma que as empresas tem encontrado para se diferenciar. Para tanto, as organizações necessitam de modelos de negócios que permitam ajustar seus processos com as freqüentes necessidades de mudanças. A metodologia utilizada foi a observação de estudo de casos com projetos de Inovação Tecnológica, que possuem altos índices na característica de mudança dos requisitos. A proposta deste trabalho é permitir que essa volatilidade seja identificada na fase de eliciação de requisitos, com base nas intenções de cada envolvido no processo de engenharia de requisitos, e que tais solicitações possam ser melhor compreendidas através da prototipação baseada nas perspectivas dos participantes: de negócio, operacional, de design e gerencial. Como resultado foi definido o volaRE, que permite se conhecer a volatilidade de um requisito, com base nas características definidas do mesmo, ainda na fase de eliciação. / Current consumers have demanded a special attention in the production and distribution of goods and services which have turned organizations to mass customization, looking for an individual satisfaction of their customers. This has been the form that companies have found to differentiate themselves. Therefore, the integration of business and productive processes must be adaptable to the frequent changes in the company\'s environment. The used methodology was the observation of cases study with of Technological Innovation projects, which have high rates of requirements changes. The proposal of this work is that this volatility could be identified in the requirements elicitation phase, based on the intent of each involved in the process of requirements engineering, and that such requests can be better understood through perspectives prototyping based of those participants: business, operational, design and management. As result volaRE was defined, that lets to know the requirement\'s volatility, based on defined characteristics, yet at elicitation phase.

A Engenharia de Requisitos (ER) vem sendo reconhecida como uma área de pesquisa de extrema relevância para o desenvolvimento de sistemas ou artefatos. As maiores causas de falhas ocorridas em projetos são oriundas do processo de aquisição e tradução dos objetivos, necessidades ou restrições estabelecidas pelos clientes e/ou usuários. Estes erros podem aumentar de forma exponencial em projetos que se propõem a desenvolver sistemas ou artefatos que estejam diretamente associados à área cirúrgica, devido a diferença do domínio de conhecimento e o vocabulário entre as mencionadas áreas. Desta forma, verifica-se a importância científica para desenvolver modelos ou métodos que minimizem o problema apresentado. Ajudar na análise e definição, de maneira apurada e precisa, junto ao especialista da área médica, em relação aos movimentos executados em um procedimento minimamente invasivo e auxiliar a área de projetos de engenharia a desenvolver esse tipo de sistema. Este trabalho de dissertação apresenta o desenvolvimento de um modelo de conduta para o processo de eliciação e comunicação de requisitos no cenário em que o desenvolvedor e o especialista pertencem a diferentes domínios, técnicas e linguagens próprias. É também realizada a aplicação prática do modelo, em uma cirurgia minimamente invasiva, em específico à cirurgia da catarata. A aplicação prática foi realizada com o total apoio do Hospital Santa Luzia e do Instituto da Catarata, UNIFESP. / In recent years, the requirements engineering process has become known as a research with extreme relevance for system development. The major failures in projects are caused by the translation requirements, i.e. the task of communicating with customers and users to determine what their requirements are. These mistakes can rise exponentially in system development projects that are directly associated with the area of surgery, because of the difference of knowledge domain and the vocabulary between the mentioned areas (engineering and medicine). In this way rises the scientific importance for models development or methods that minimize the problem presented above. Helping analyzing and defining, in a fine and accurate way, a long with a specialist from the medical area, relating the movements executed in the minimally invasive process and help the area of engineering design develop this type of system. Considering this, we propose in this dissertation the development of a model that show elicitation process and a communication of requirements in a scenario in which the developer and stackholder pretence a different types of domain, techniques and proper languages. The model is also practices in a minimally invasive surgery, especially in cataract surgery. It was practiced with the full support of Santa Luzia Hospital, and the Institute of Cataract, UNIFESP.