James Lockerbie

Exploring how to use scenarios to discover requirements

This paper investigates the effectiveness of different uses of scenarios on requirements discovery using results from requirements processes in two projects. The first specified requirements on a new aircraft management system at a regional UK airport to reduce its environmental impact. The second specified new work-based learning tools to be adopted by a consortium of organizations. In both projects scenarios were walked through both in facilitated workshops and in the stakeholders’ workplaces using different forms of a scenario tool. In the second project, scenarios were also walked through with a software prototype and creativity prompts. Results revealed both qualitative and quantitative differences in discovered requirements that have potential implications for models of scenario-based requirements discovery and the design of scenario tools.

Exploring the Effectiveness of Normative i* Modelling: Results from a Case Study on Food Chain Traceability

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of an extension to i*modelling --- normative i*modelling --- during the requirements analysis for new socio-technical systems for food traceability. The i*focus on modelling systems as networks of heterogeneous, inter-dependent actors provides limited support for modelling system-wide properties and norms, such as laws and regulations, that also influence the specification of socio-technical systems. In this paper we introduce an extension to i*to model and analyse norms, then apply it to model laws and regulations applicable to European food traceability systems. We report an analysis of the relative strengths and weaknesses of this extended form of i*with its traditional forms, and use results to answer two research questions about the usefulness and usability of the i*modelling extension.

Using Satisfaction Arguments to Enhance i* Modelling of an Air Traffic Management System

This paper reports the integration of satisfaction arguments into i* goal modelling to support analyses of the impact of new software systems on system-wide goals. Integration is based on a conceptual model that relates satisfaction argument and i* model concepts. New impact analysis procedures based on the integrated models and satisfaction arguments are introduced.

Automatically generating requirements from i * models: experiences with a complex airport operations

Research undertaken in RESCUE to bridge the gap between both the model based specification and textual representation of requirements, showed that manually applying requirements generation patterns to i* system models could provide requirements engineers with productivity gains. This paper reports an extension to the RESCUE process in which a revised set of patterns was implemented within our REDEPEND goal modelling tool and trialled through a requirements engineering project for a complex airport operations system. The paper describes how these patterns were applied automatically to i* models in REDEPEND to generate textual candidate requirement statements, the results of this application, the benefits of the approach to the project, and our ongoing research in this area to improve productivity in large-scale requirements engineering projects.

Creativity and Goal Modeling for Software Requirements Engineering

In order to be successful, software (applications) must be both useful and innovative. Techniques for determining the requirements (functions and qualities) of software have traditionally focused on utility, with a prominent body of work using graphical goal modeling and analysis to ensure that system functions meet the needs (goals) of users. However, these techniques are not designed to foster creativity, meaning that resulting systems may be functionally useful but not sufficiently innovative. Further work has focused on creativity workshops for finding and developing software requirements. However, creative outputs are not grounded in user goals, are not amenable to decision support techniques, and cannot be easily captured by non-experts. In this work we report initial progress on a project aiming to combine goal modeling and creativity techniques for enhanced software Requirements Engineering (RE). We apply our methods to a historical case in air traffic control, providing example outcomes, illustrating the benefits of a creativity- and goal-oriented approach to early software development.

REDEPEND: Extending i* Modelling into Requirements Processes

This paper describes our REDEPEND tool for i* goal modelling and analysis, and new features designed to make it more usable and useful. Pattern-based techniques that generate text requirements statements from graphical i* models improve the productivity and utility of REDEPEND in requirements projects

Exploring the impact of software requirements on system-wide goals: a method using satisfaction arguments and i* goal modelling

This paper describes the application of requirements engineering concepts to support the analysis of the impact of new software systems on system-wide goals. Requirements on a new or revised software component of a socio-technical system not only have implications on the goals of the subsystem itself, but they also impact upon the goals of the existing integrated system. In industries such as air traffic management and healthcare, impacts need to be identified and demonstrated in order to assess concerns such as risk, safety, and accuracy. A method called PiLGRIM was developed which integrates means-end relationships within goal modelling with knowledge associated with the application domain. The relationship between domain knowledge and requirements, as described in a satisfaction argument, adds traceability rationale to help determine the impacts of new requirements across a network of heterogeneous actors. We report procedures that human analysts follow to use the concepts of satisfaction arguments in a software tool for i* goal modelling. Results were demonstrated using models and arguments developed in two case studies, each featuring a distinct socio-technical system—a new controlled airspace infringement detection tool for NATS (the UK’s air navigation service provider), and a new version of the UK’s HIV/AIDS patient reporting system. Results provided evidence towards our claims that the conceptual integration of i* and satisfaction arguments is usable and useful to human analysts, and that the PiLGRIM impact analysis procedures and tool support are effective and scalable to model and analyse large and complex socio-technical systems.

Towards a framework for describing cloud service characteristics for use by chief information officers

This paper reports the first steps of work undertaken by a consortium of commercial and academic institutions to describe and share cloud service characteristics for use by consumer organizations, and in particular by the chief information officers of these organizations to manage their portfolios of cloud services. It describes a model of cloud service characteristics, focusing on qualities associated with the service and the important associations between service characteristics necessary to generate claims about the goodness or otherwise of a service. It presents several examples of measures, metrics and indicators specified to describe different types of cloud service characteristic included in the model. The paper ends with a description of future work, to make cloud service data and information available to a wider community of service consumers and organizations.

Inventing Requirements: Experiences with an Airport Operations System

This paper reports a workshop that integrated creativity techniques with extended use case diagrams and storyboard representations of use cases to discover stakeholder requirements for VANTAGE, a new system designed to reduce environmental impact at airports. The workshop revised the boundaries of the system and generated 200 new requirements-based ideas and storyboards for VANTAGE. The paper describes the workshop structure, gives examples of outputs from it, and uses these outputs to answer 3 research questions about the usefulness of ideas generated and creativity techniques employed.

Establishing Digital Creativity Support in Non-Creative Work Environments

This paper reports the results of research that sought the long-term uptake of digital support for human creativity to improve health-and-safety in 3 manufacturing plants over an 18-month period. The systematic risk detection and reso-lution processes of each plant were extended with digital support for employees to think creatively about resolutions to encountered health-and-safety risks. The different uses, successful and unsuccessful, revealed which digitized crea-tivity techniques were effective, different enablers for and barriers to the uptake of the digital creativity support in complex work places, and the importance of management support for aligning work practices and digital capabilities to support creative thinking.