Abstract
[Context and Motivation] The main role of requirements engineering (RE) is to guide development projects towards implementing products that will appeal to customers. To effectively achieve this RE needs to be coordinated with and clearly communicated to the later software development activities. [Question/Problem] Communication gaps between RE and other development activities reduce coordination and alignment, and can lead to project delays and failure to meet customer needs. [Principle ideas/results] The main hypothesis is that coordination is enhanced by proximity to RE roles and artefacts, and that distances to later activities increase the effort needed to align requirements with other development work. Thirteen RE-related distances have been identified through a systematic map of existing research. [Contribution] Reported distances are mapped according to research type, RE activity and later software development activities. The results provide an overview of RE distances and can be used a basis for defining a theoretical framework.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Agerfalk, P.J., Fitzgerald, B., Holmstrom Olsson, H., Lings, B., Lundell, B., Ó Conchúir, E.: A Framework for Considering Opportunities and Threats in Distributed Software Development. In: Proc. of Int. Works. on Distr. Softw. Eng., DiSD 2005, pp. 47–61 (2005)
Allen, T.: Managing the flow of technology. MIT Press, Cambridge (1977)
Azzeh, M., Neagu, D.C., Cowling, P.I.: Software project similarity measurement based on fuzzy C-means. In: Wang, Q., Pfahl, D., Raffo, D.M. (eds.) ICSP 2008. LNCS, vol. 5007, pp. 123–134. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Bjarnason, E.: Study material for RE distance study incl. list of all papers, http://serg.cs.lth.se/research/experiment_packages/distmap/ (latest access January 28, 2013)
Bjarnason, E., Runeson, P., Borg, M., et al.: Challenges and Practices in Aligning Requirements with Verification and Validation: A Case Study of Six Companies. Submitted to Empirical Software Engineering Journal (2013)
Bjarnason, E., Wnuk, K., Regnell, B.: Requirements are Slipping Through the Gaps – A Case Study on Cause & Effects of Communication Gaps in Large-Scale Software Development. In: Proc. of 19th IEEE Int Requirements Engineering Conf., pp. 37–46 (2011)
Brereton, P., Kitchenham, B.A., Budgen, D., et al.: Lessons from applying the systematic literature review process within the software engineering domain. Journal of Systems and Softw. 80(4), 571–583 (2007)
Briand, L.C., Labiche, Y., O’Sullivan, L., Sówka, M.M.: Automated impact analysis of UML models. Journal of Systems and Softw. 79(3), 339–352 (2006)
Calefato, F., Damian, D., Lanubile, F.: An Empirical Investigation on Text-Based Communication in Distributed Requirements Workshops. In: Proc. of Int. Conf. on Global Softw. Engineering (ICGSE 2007), pp. 3–11 (2007)
Chakraborty, C., Chakraborty, D.: A fuzzy clustering methodology for linguistic opinions in group decision making. J. of Applied Soft Computing 7(3), 858–869 (2007)
Chiu, N.H., Huang, S.J.: The adjusted analogy-based software effort estimation based on similarity distances. Journal of Systems and Softw. 80(4), 628–640 (2007)
Curtis, B., Krasner, H., Iscoe, N.: A Field Study of the Software Design Process for Large Systems. Commun. ACM, 1268–1287 (November 1988)
Damian, D.: An empirical study of requirements engineering in distributed software projects: Is distance negotiation more effective? In: Proc. of 8th Asia Pacific Softw. Engineering Conf., APSEC 2001, pp. 149–152 (2001)
Damian, D.: Chisan: An Empirical Study of the Complex Relationships between Requirements Engineering Processes and Other Processes that Lead to Payoffs in Productivity, Quality, and Risk Management. IEEE Trans. on Softw. Eng. 43(7), 433–453 (2006)
Dibbern, J., Winkler, J., Heinz, A.: Explaining variations in client extra costs between software projects offshored to India. MIS Quarterly: Management Information Systems 32(2), 333–366 (2008)
Ebert, C.: Understanding the product life cycle: four key requirements engineering techniques. IEEE Softw. 23(3), 19–25 (2006)
Fricker, S., Glinz, M.: Comparison of Requirements Hand-Off, Analysis, and Negotiation: Case Study. In: Proc. of 18th Int Requirements Engineering Conf., pp. 167–176 (2010)
Herlea, D., Greenberg, S.: Using a groupware space for distributed requirements engineering. In: Proc. of Workshop on Enabling Technologies: Infrastructure for Collaborative Enterprises, WET ICE, pp. 57–62 (1998)
Hofstede, G.: Cultural constraints in management theories. Academy of Management Executive 7(1), 81–94 (1993)
Huo, M., Zhang, H., Jeffery, R.: Detection of consistent patterns from process enactment data. In: Wang, Q., Pfahl, D., Raffo, D.M. (eds.) ICSP 2008. LNCS, vol. 5007, pp. 173–185. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)
Jilani, L.L., Desharnais, J., Mili, A.: Defining and Applying Measures of Distance Between Specifications. Journal IEEE Transactions on Softw. Eng. 27(8), 673–703 (2001)
Lawson, M., Karandikar, H.M.: A Survey of Concurrent Engineering. Concurrent Engineering 2(1) (1994)
Liberman, N., Trope, Y., Stephan, E.: Psychological Distance. In: Kruglanski, Higgins (eds.) “Social Psychology: Handbook of Basic Principles, 2nd edn., pp. 353–381. Guilford Press (2007)
Marczak, S., Damian, D.: How Interaction between Roles Shapes the Communication Structure in Requirements-Driven Collaboration. In: 19th IEEE Int. Req. Eng. Conf., pp. 47–56 (2011)
Nuseibeh, B.: Weaving together requirements and architectures. Computer 34(3), 115–119 (2001)
Petersen, K., Feldt, R., Mujtaba, S., et al.: Systematic Mapping Studies in Software Engineering. In: 12th Int. Conf. on Evaluation and Assessm. in Softw. Eng., pp. 71–80 (2008)
Prikladnicki, R.: Propinquity in global software engineering: Examining perceived distance in globally distributed project teams. Journal of Softw. Evolution and Process 24(2), 119–137 (2012)
Shepperd, M., Schofield, C.: Estimating Software Project Effort Using Analogies. IEEE Trans. on Softw. Eng. 23(11), 736–743 (1997)
Swartout, W., Balzer, R.: On the Inevitable Intertwining of Specification and Implementation. Comm. ACM 25(7), 438–440 (1982)
Thelin, T., Runeson, P.: Robust estimations of fault content with capture–recapture and detection profile estimators. Journal of Systems and Softw. 52(2-3), 139–148 (2000)
Uusitalo, E.J., Komssi, M., Kauppinen, M., et al.: Linking Requirements and Testing in Practice. In: 16th IEEE Int Requirements Engineering Conf., NJ, USA, pp. 265–270 (2008)
Wende, E., Philip, T.: Instant messenger in offshore outsourced software development projects: Experiences from a case study. In: Proc. of 44th Annual Hawaii Int. Conf. on System Sciences (2010)
Wieringa, R., Maiden, N., Mead, N., Rolland, C.: Requirements Engineering Paper Classification and Evaluation Criteria: a Proposal and a Discussion. Journal of Requir. Eng. 11(1), 102–107 (2006)
Winkler, J.K., Dibbern, J., Heinzl, A.: The impact of cultural differences in offshore outsourcing-Case study results from German-Indian application development projects. Inf. Systems Frontiers 10(2), 243–258 (2008)
Wolf, T., Nguyen, T., Damian, D.: Does distance still matter? Journal of Impr. and Practice of Softw. Process 13(6), 493–510 (2008)
Yousuf, F., Zaman, Z., Ikram, N.: Requirements validation techniques in GSD: A survey. In: Proc. 12th IEEE Int. Multitopic Conf. INMIC 2008, pp. 553–557 (2008)
Yu, Y., Sharp, H.: Analyzing requirements in a case study of pairing. In: Proc. of 1st Int. Workshop on Agile RE, Lancaster, UK (2011)
Zhu, J., Hipel, K.W.: Multiple stages grey target decision making method with incomplete weight based on multi-granularity linguistic label. Journal of Information Sciences 212, 15–32 (2012)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Bjarnason, E. (2013). Distances between Requirements Engineering and Later Software Development Activities: A Systematic Map. In: Doerr, J., Opdahl, A.L. (eds) Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality. REFSQ 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7830. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37422-7_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-37422-7_21
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-37421-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-37422-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)