Matthew Callery

Flexible modeling tools for pre-requirements analysis: conceptual architecture and research challenges

A serious tool gap exists at the start of the software lifecy-cle, before requirements formulation. Pre-requirements analysts gather information, organize it to gain insight, en-vision possible futures, and present insights and recom-mendations to stakeholders. They typically use office tools, which give great freedom, but no help with consistency management, change propagation, or information migration to downstream tools. Despite these downsides, office tools are still favored over modeling tools, which are constrain-ing and difficult to use. We introduce the notion of flexible modeling tools, which blend the advantages of office and modeling tools. We propose a conceptual architecture for such tools, and outline research challenges to be met in realizing them. We briefly describe the Business Insight Toolkit, a prototype tool embodying this architecture.

An algorithm for identifying the abstract syntax of graph-based diagrams

Diagrams play a key role in the information systems domain. However to be meaningful, the diagrams are understood by interpreting visual cues in specific, conventionalized ways, termed conceptual models. One of the major pain points of conceptual models, specified as visual languages, is the inability to capture these visual languages effectively in conventional modeling tools. Instead, conceptual models are drawn using drawing tools and sometimes even by hand. We propose an automatic procedure to derive the syntactic building blocks of graph-based conceptual models. This high-level specification of the visual language can then serve as input for the automatic construction of syntax-aware diagram editors. Our aim is to achieve minimum effort on the part of the users when they eventually work with the graphical editor to produce a new diagram using the proposed syntax.

Business insight toolkit: Flexible pre-requirements modeling

Pre-requirements analysis requires modeling tools with unprecedented flexibility. The Business Insight Toolkit (BITKit) is a prototype of a new kind of modeling tool, aimed at offering the flexibility of office tools along with many of the advantages of modeling tools.

Blending freeform and managed information in tables (NIER track)

Tables are an important tool used by business analysts engaged in early requirements activities (in fact it is safe to say that tables appeal to many other types of user, in a variety of activities and domains). Business analysts typically use the tables provided by office tools. These tables offer great flexibility, but no underlying model, and hence no consistency management, multiple views or other advantages familiar to the users of modeling tools. Modeling tools, however, are usually too rigid for business analysts. In this paper we present a flexible modeling approach to tables, which combines the advantages of both office and modeling tools. Freeform information can co-exist with information managed by an underlying model, and an incremental formalization approach allows each item of information to transition fluidly between freeform and managed. As the model evolves, it is used to guide the user in the process of formalizing any remaining freeform information. The model therefore helps users without restricting them. Early feedback is described, and the approach is analyzed briefly in terms of cognitive dimensions.