[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/ Skip to main content
Log in

The role of distances in requirements communication: a case study

  • Original Article
  • Published:
Requirements Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Requirements communication plays a vital role in development projects in coordinating the customers, the business roles and the software engineers. Communication gaps represent a significant source of project failures and overruns. For example, misunderstood or uncommunicated requirements can lead to software that does not meet the customers’ requirements, and subsequent low number of sales or additional cost required to redo the implementation. We propose that requirements engineering (RE) distance measures are useful for locating gaps in requirements communication and for improving on development practice. In this paper, we present a case study of one software development project to evaluate this proposition. Thirteen RE distances were measured including geographical and cognitive distances between project members, and semantic distances between requirements and testing artefacts. The findings confirm that RE distances impact requirements communication and project coordination. Furthermore, the concept of distances was found to enable constructive group reflection on communication gaps and improvements to development practices. The insights reported in this paper can provide practitioners with an increased awareness of distances and their impact. Furthermore, the results provide a stepping stone for further research into RE distances and methods for improving on software development processes and practices.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
£29.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price includes VAT (United Kingdom)

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Agerfalk PJ, Fitzgerald B, Holmstrom Olsson H, Lings B, Lundell B, ÓConchúir E (2005) A framework for considering opportunities and threats in distributed software development. Proc Int Works Distr Softw Eng DiSD 2005:47–61

    Google Scholar 

  2. Allen T (1977) Managing the flow of technology. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA

    Google Scholar 

  3. Angermo Ringstad M, Dingsøyr T, Moe NB (2011) Agile process improvement: diagnosis and planning to improve teamwork. In: Proceedings of 18th European conference on systems, software and service process improvement (EuroSPI’11), Communications in computer and information science ,vol 172, pp 167–178

  4. Barmi ZA, Ebrahimi AH, Feldt R (2011) Alignment of requirements specification and testing: a systematic mapping study. In: Proceedings of the 4th international conference on software testing, verification and validation workshops (ICSTW), pp 476–485

  5. Basili VR, Rombach HD (1988) The TAME project: towards improvement-oriented software environments. IEEE Trans Softw Eng 14(6):758–773

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Benner P (1982) From novice to expert. Am J Nurs 82(3):402–407

    Google Scholar 

  7. Berntsson Svensson R, Aurum A, Paech B, Gorschek T, Sharma D (2012) Software architecture as a means of communication in a globally distributed software development context. In: Proceedings of the 13th international conference on product-focused software process improvement (PROFES’12), pp 175–189

  8. Bjarnason E, Wnuk K, Regnell B (2011) Requirements are slipping through the gaps—a case study on cause and effects of communication gaps in large-scale software development. In: Proceedings of the 19th IEEE international requirements engineering conference, pp 37–46

  9. Bjarnason E (2013) Distances between requirements engineering and later software development activities: a systematic map. In: Proceedings of requirements engineering for software quality conference (REFSQ) 2013, pp 292–307

  10. Bjarnason E, Runeson P, Borg M et al (2013) Challenges and practices in aligning requirements with verification and validation: a case study of six companies. Empirical software engineering, published on-line July 2013

  11. Bjarnason E (2013) Research material for Gap Finder evaluation study incl measurement instruments, interview guide etc. (latest access: 2015-02-27). http://serg.cs.lth.se/research/experiment_packages/GapFinder/

  12. Bjarnason E, Smolander K, Engström E, Runeson P (2014) Alignment practices affect distances in software development: a theory and a model. 3rd Semat workshop on general theories of software engineering (GTSE14), pp 21–31

  13. Bjarnason E, Hess A, Berntsson Svensson R, Regnell B, Doerr J (2014) Reflecting on evidence-based timelines. IEEE Softw 31(4):37–43

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Briand LC, Labiche Y, O’Sullivan L, Sówka MM (2006) Automated impact analysis of UML models. J Syst Softw 79(3):339–352

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Calefato F, Damian D, Lanubile F (2007) An empirical investigation on text-based communication in distributed requirements workshops. In: Proceedings of 2nd international conference on global software engineering (ICGSE 2007), pp 3–11. doi:10.1109/ICGSE.2007.9

  16. Cataldo M, Herbsleb J, Carley K (2008) Socio-technical congruence: a framework for assessing the impact of technical and work dependencies on software development productivity. In: Proceedings of 2nd ACM-IEEE international symposium on empirical software engineering and measurements (ESEM ‘08)

  17. Charrada EB, Koziolek A, Glinz M (2012) Identifying outdated requirements based on source code changes. In: 20th IEEE international requirements engineering conference (RE), pp 61–70

  18. Cheng BH, Atlee JM (2007) Research directions in requirement engineering. In: Proceeding of future of software engineering (FOSE), pp 285–303, May 2007

  19. Cleland-Huang J, Chang CK, Christensen M (2003) Event-based traceability for managing evolutionary change. IEEE Trans Softw 29(9):796–810

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Curtis B, Krasner H, Iscoe N (1988) A field study of the software design process for large systems. Commun ACM 31(11):1268–1287

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Damian D (2001) An empirical study of requirements engineering in distributed software projects: is distance negotiation more effective? In: Proceedings of 8th Asia-Pacific software engineering conference (APSEC 2001), pp 149–152

  22. Damian DE, Zowghi D (2003) Requirements engineering challenges in multi-site software development organizations. Req Eng J 8:149–160

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Damian D, Chisan J, Vaidyanathasamy L, Pal Y (2005) Requirements engineering and downstream software development: findings from a case study. Empir Softw Eng 10:255–283

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Damian D, Kwan I, Marczak S (2010) Requirements-driven collaboration: leveraging the invisible relationships between requirements and people. Collaborative software engineering. Springer, New York, pp 57–76

  25. Davis CJ, Tremblay MC, Fuller RM, Berndt DJ (2006) Communication challenges in requirements elicitation and use of the repertory grid technique. J Comput Inf Syst 46(5):78 (Special Issue 2006)

  26. De Lucia A, Fasano F, Oliveto R, Tortora G (2007) Recovering traceability links in software artifact management systems using information retrieval methods. ACM Trans Softw Eng Methodol 16(4):Article 13

  27. Dias Neto AC, Arilo C, Subramanyan R, Vieira M, Travassos GH (2007) A survey on model-based testing approaches: a systematic review. In: Proceedings of 1st ACM international workshop on empirical assessment of software engineering languages and technologies, pp 31–36

  28. Dibbern J, Winkler J, Heinz A (2008) Explaining variations in client extra costs between software projects offshored to India. MIS Q Manag Inf Syst 32(2):333–366

  29. Feldt R, Staron M, Hult E, Liljegren T (2013) Supporting software decision meetings: heatmaps for visualising test and code measurements. In: Software engineering and advanced applications (SEAA), 39th EUROMICRO conference on, pp 62–69

  30. Feldt R, Torkar R, Lefteris A, Samuelsson M (2008) Proceedings of 2008 international workshop on cooperative and human aspects of software engineering (CHASE’08), pp 49–52

  31. Flemming WR (1978) Requirements communication. International conference automatic testing (AUTOMTESTCON’78), pp 228–229. doi: 10.1109/AUTEST.1978.764370

  32. Fricker S, Glinz M (2010) Comparison of requirements hand-off, analysis, and negotiation: case study. In: Proceedings of IEEE international requirements engineering conference, Sept 2010, pp 167–176. doi:10.1109/RE.2010.29

  33. Gotel O, Finkelstein A (1994) An analysis of the requirements traceability problem. In: Proceedings of first international conference on requirements engineering, pp 94–101

  34. Grieskamp W, Kicillof N, Stobie K, Braberman V (2011) Model-based quality assurance of protocol documentation: tools and methodology. Softw Test Verif Reliab 21(1):55–71

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Hasling B, Goetz H, Beetz K (2008) Model based testing of system requirements using UML use case models. In: Proceedings of 2008 international conference on software testing, verification, and validation

  36. Hayes JH, Dekhtyar A, Sundaram SK, Holbrook EA, Vadlamudi S, April A (2007) REquirements TRacing on target (RETRO): improving software maintenance through traceability recovery. Innov Syst Softw Eng 3(3):193–202

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Hofmann HF, Lehner F (2001) Requirements engineering as a success factor in software projects. IEEE Softw 18(4):58–66

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Jalali S, Gencel C, Šmite D (2010) Trust dynamics in global software engineering. In: Proceedings of the 2010 ACM-IEEE international symposium on empirical software engineering and measurement. ACM, New York, p 23

  39. Jarke M (1998) Requirements traceability. Comm ACM 41(12):32–36

  40. Jilani LL, Desharnais J, Mili A (2001) Defining and applying measures of distance between specifications. IEEE Trans Softw Eng 27(8):673–703

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Jørgensen M, Sjøberg D (2000) The importance of NOT learning from experience. Proceedings of European software process improvement, EuroSPI’2000, pp 2.2–2.8

  42. Karlsson L, Dahlstedt AG, Regnell B, Natt och Dag J, Persson A (2007) Requirements engineering challenges in market-driven software development-an interview study with practitioners. Inf Softw Technol 49(6):588–604

  43. Kraut RE, Streeter L (1995) Coordination in software development. Commun ACM 38(3):69–81

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Kukkanen J, Vakevainen K, Kauppinen M, Uusitalo E (2009) Applying a systematic approach to link requirements and testing: a case study. In: Proceedings of Asia-Pacific software engineering conference (APSEC ‘09):482–488

  45. Kwan I, Marczak S, Damian D (2007) Viewing project collaborators who work on interrelated requirements. In: Proceedings of 15th IEEE international requirements engineering conference (RE’07), pp 369–370

  46. Lormans M, van Deursen A, Gross H (2008) An Industrial case study in reconstructing requirements views. Emp Softw Eng 13(6):727–760

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Lubars M, Potts C, Richter C (1993) A review of the state of the practice in requirements modelling. In: Proceedings of 1st IEEE international symposium on requirements engineering, pp 2–14

  48. Marczak S, Damian D, Stege U, Schröter A (2008) Information brokers in requirement-dependency social networks. In: Proceedings of 16th IEEE international conference on requirements engineering (RE’08), pp 53–62

  49. Marczak S, Damian D (2011) How interaction between roles shapes the communication structure in requirements-driven collaboration. In: 19th IEEE international requirements engineering conference, pp 47–56

  50. Martin R, Melnik G (2008) Tests and requirements, requirements and tests a Möbius strip. IEEE Softw 25(1):54–59

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Melnik G, Maurer F, Chiasson M (2006) Executable acceptance tests for communicating business requirements: customer perspective. In: Proceedings of agile conference, Minneapolis, USA, pp 12–46

  52. Misra SH, Kumar V, Kumar U (2009) Identifying some important success factors in adopting agile software development practices. J Syst Softw 82(11):1869–1890

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Mohagheghi P, Dehlen V (2008) Where is the proof? A review of experiences from applying MDE in industry. In: Proceedings of model driven architecture–foundations and applications, pp 432–443

  54. Moe NB, Dingsøyr T, Røyrvik EA (2009) Putting agile teamwork to the test—an preliminary instrument for empirically assessing and improving agile software development. In: Proceedings of XP 2009, LNBIP 31, pp 114–123

  55. Nebut C, Fleurey F, Traon YL, Jézéquel J (2006) Automatic test generation: a use case driven approach. IEEE Trans Softw Eng 32(3):140–155

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Post H, Sinz C, Merz F, Gorges T, Kropf T (2009) Linking functional requirements and software verification. In: Proceedings of 17th IEEE international requirements engineering conference, pp 295–302

  57. Ramesh B, Stubbs C, Powers T, Edwards M (1997) Requirements traceability: theory and practice. Ann Softw Eng 3(1):397–415

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Ramesh B (1998) Factors influencing requirements traceability practice. Commun ACM CACM Homepage Arch 41(12):37–44

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Ramesh B, Cao L, Baskerville R (2010) Agile requirements engineering practices and challenges: an empirical study. Inf Syst J 20(5):449–480

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. Randell B (1969) Towards a methodology of computing system design. NATO working conference on software engineering 1968, report on a conference sponsored by NATO Scientific Committee, Garmisch, Germany, pp 204–208

  61. Regnell B, Runeson P (1998) Combining Scenario-based requirements with static verification and dynamic testing. In: Proceedings of 4th international working conference requirements engineering: foundation for software quality, pp 195–206

  62. Regnell B, Runeson P, Wohlin C (2000) Towards integration of use case modelling and usage-based testing. J Syst Softw 50(2):117–130

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. Robinson H, Segal J, Sharp H (2007) Ethnographically-informed empirical studies of software practice. Inf Softw Technol 49:540–551

    Article  Google Scholar 

  64. Robson C (2002) Real world research, 2nd ed. Blackwell Publishing, Hoboken

  65. Runeson P, Höst M, Rainer A, Regnell B (2012) Case study research in software engineering—guidelines and examples. Wiley, Hoboken

  66. Sabaliauskaite G, Loconsole A, Engström E, Unterkalmsteiner M, Regnell B, Runeson P, Gorschek T, Feldt R (2010) Challenges in aligning requirements engineering and verification in a large-scale industrial context. In: Proceedings of REFSQ 2010

  67. Stapel K, Knauss E, Schneider K (2009) Using FLOW to improve communication of requirements in globally distributed software projects. In: IEEE proceedings of international workshop on collaboration and intercultural issues on requirements: communication, understanding and softskills, pp 5–14

  68. Stapel K, Knauss E, Schneider K, Zazworka N (2011) FLOW mapping: planning and managing communication in distributed teams. In: Proceedings of 6th IEEE international conference on global software engineering (ICGSE), pp 190–199

  69. Tsun C, Dac-Buu C (2008) A survey study of critical success factors in agile software projects. J Syst Softw 81(6):961–971

    Article  Google Scholar 

  70. Uusitalo EJ, Komssi M, Kauppinen M et al (2008) Linking requirements and testing in practice. In: 16th IEEE international requirements engineering conference, NJ, USA, pp 265–270

  71. Watkins R, Neal M (1994) Why and how of requirements tracing. IEEE Softw 11(4):104–106

    Article  Google Scholar 

  72. Wolf T, Nguyen T, Damian D (2008) Does distance still matter? J Impr Practice Softw Process 13(6):493–510

  73. Yue T, Briand LC, Labiche Y (2011) A systematic review of transformation approaches between user requirements and analysis models. Requir Eng 16(2):75–99

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. von Zedtwitz M (2002) Organizational learning through post-project reviews in R&D. R&D Manag 32(3):255–268

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the development team members for enabling this study by sharing their time, thoughts and office space. We also want to thank the reviewers, both Dr Leonor Barroca and our anonymous reviewers for providing constructive feedback that has helped us improve the readability of our results. This work was partly funded by EASE http://ease.cs.lth.se and by Ericsson Research.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Elizabeth Bjarnason.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Bjarnason, E., Sharp, H. The role of distances in requirements communication: a case study. Requirements Eng 22, 1–26 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00766-015-0233-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00766-015-0233-3

Keywords

Navigation