Abstract
A framework for assessing research and practice in requirements engineering is proposed. The framework is used to survey state of the art research contributions and practice. The framework considers a task activity view of requirements, and elaborates different views of requirements engineering (RE) depending on the starting point of a system development. Another perspective is to analyse RE from different conceptions of products and their properties. RE research is examined within this framework and then placed in the context of how it extends current system development methods and systems analysis techniques.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Bell TE, Thayer TA. Software requirements: are they really a problem? In: Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on software engineering, 1976, pp 61–68
Thayer R., Dorfman M. System and software requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1990
IEEE-TSE. Special issue on requirements engineering. IEEE Trans Software Eng 1991; 17(3)
IEEE-TSE. Special issue on requirements engineering. IEEE Trans Software Eng 1992; 18(6)
Finkelstein ACW, Fickas S (eds). Proceedings of IEEE symposium on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1993
Davies AM, Hasai P (eds). Proceedings of the 1st International conference on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1994
Lubars M, Potts C, Richter C. A review of the state of the practice in requirements modelling. In: Fickas S, Finkelstein ACW (eds). Proceedings of RE'93. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1993, pp 2–14
El Emam K, Madhavji NH. A field study of requirements engineering practices in information systems development. In: Harrison MD, Zave P (eds). Proceedings of RE'95. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1995, pp 68–80
Sommerville I. Software engineering. Addison Wesley, Reading, MA, 1989
Bubenko J. Extending the scope of information modelling. SISU, Stockholm, 1993
Dubois E, Hagelstein J, Rifaut A. Formal requirements engineering with ERAE. Philips J Res 1989; 43(4): 393–414
Jackson M, Zave P. Domain descriptions. In: IEEE symposium on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1993, pp 56–64
Goguen J, Linde C. Techniques for requirements elicitation. In: Proceedings of the 1st international symposium on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1993, pp 152–164
Jackson M. Software requirements and specifications. Addison Wesley, Reading, MA, 1995
Keller SE, Kahn LG, Parna RB. Specifying software quality requirements with metrics: tutorial paper. In: Thayer RH, Dorfman M (eds). System and software requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1990, pp 145–163
Davies AM, Software requirements: object functions and states. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1993
Pohl K. Process centered requirements engineering. Wiley, Chichester, 1996
Feather MS, Fickas S, Helm R. Composite system design: the good news and the bad news. In: Proceedings of the 6th knowledge-based software engineering conference, Syracuse, NY. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1991, pp 16–25
Goguen JA. Social issues in requirements engineering. In: Proceedings of IEEE symposium on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1993, pp 194–195
Harker SDP, Eason KD, Dobson JE. The change and evolution of requirements as a challenge to the practice of software engineering. In: IEEE symposium on requirements engineering, RE '93, San Diego, CA. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1993, pp 266–272
Maiden NAM, Rung G. ACRE: Selecting methods for Requirements Acquisition. Software Engineering Journal 1996; 11(3): 183–192
Pohl K. The three dimensions of requirements engineering. In: Proceedings of CAiSE '93, Paris. Springer-Verlag. Berlin, 1993
Jackson M. Problems, methods and specialisation. Software Eng J 1994; 9(6):249–255. Special issue on software engineering in the year 2001
Roman G. A taxonomy of current issues in requirements engineering. IEEE Comput 1985; April: 14–22
Loucopoulos P, Karakostas V. System requirements engineering. McGraw-Hill, London 1995
Zave P. Classification of research efforts in requirements engineering. In: Harrison MD, Zave P (eds). Proceedings of RE '95: second international symposium on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1995, pp 214–216
Kirikova M, Bubenko JA. Enterprise modelling: improving the quality of requirements specifications. Olou, Finland, 1994
DSDM-Consortium. Dynamic systems development method. Tesseract, Farnham, UK, 1995
Gause D, Weinberg G. Exploring requirements. Dorset House, New York, 1989
Luff P, Jorotka M, Heath C, Greatbatch D. Tasks and social interaction: the relevance of naturalistic analyses of conduct for requirements engineering. In: IEEE symposium on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1993, pp 187–190
Hughes J, O'Brien J, Rhodden T, Rouncefield M, Sommerville I. Presenting ethnography in the requirements process. In: Zave P, Harrison MD (eds). Proceedings of RE '95, Second international symposium on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1995, pp 27–34
Potts C, Takahashi K, Anton A. Inquiry based requirements analysis. IEEE Software 1994; March: 21–32
Potts C, Takahashi K, Smith J, Ora K. An evaluation of inquiry based requirements analysis for an Internet service. In: Zave P, Harrison MD (eds). Proceedings of RE '95, second international symposium on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1995, pp 27–34
Sutcliffe AG, Maiden NAM. Bridging the requirements gap: policies, goals and domains. In: Proceedings of the 7th international workshop on system specification and design. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1993, pp 52–55
Checkland P. Systems thinking, systems practice. Wiley, Chichester, 1981
Conklin J, Begeman ML. gIBIS: a hypertext tool for exploratory policy discussion. ACM Trans Office Inform Syst 1988; 6(4): 303–331
MacLean A, Young RM, Belotti VME, Moran TP. Questions, options and criteria: elements of design space analysis. In: Carroll JM, Moran TP (eds). Humancomputer interaction 1991; 6(3,4): 201–250. Special issue on design rationale
van Lamsweerde A, Darimont R, Massonet P. Goal directed elaboration of requirements for a meeting scheduler: problems and lessons learnt. In: Harrison MD, Zave P (eds). Proceedings of RE '95. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1995, pp 194–203
Attwood ME, Burns B, Girgensohn A, Lee A, Turner T, Zimmerman B. Prototyping considered dangerous. In: Nordby K, Helmersen PH, Gilmore DJ, Arnesen SA (eds). Proceedings of human computer interaction: INTERACT '95. IFIP/Chapman & Hall, London, 1995, pp 179–184
Gould JD. How to design usable systems. In: Bullinger H-J, Shackel B (eds). Proceedings INTERACT '87. North-Holland, Amsterdam, 1987
Maiden NAM, Sutcliffe AG. Requirements critiquing using domain abstractions. In: Siddiqi J (ed). Proceedings of the 1st international conference on requirements engineering, IEEE Computer Society Press, 1994, pp 184–193
Carroll JM, Alpert SR, Karat J, Van Deusen M, Rosson MB. Raison d'être: capturing design history and rationale in multimedia narratives. In: Adelson B, Dumais S, Olson J (eds). Proceedings of CHI '94: human factors in computing systems. ACM Press, 1994, pp 192–197
Johnson WL, Feather MS, Harris DR. Representation and presentation of requirements knowledge. IEEE Trans Software Eng 1992; 18(10): pp 853–869
Sutcliffe AG. Requirements rationales: integrating approaches to requirements analysis. In: Olson GM, Schuon S (eds). Proceedings of Designing Interactive Systems, DIS '95. ACM Press, 1995, pp 33–42
Chung L. Representing and using non-functional requirements: a process-oriented approach. Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, 1993
Yu ESK. Modelling organisations for information systems requirements engineering. In: Finkelstein ACW (ed). Proceedings of IEEE symposium on requirements engineering, RE '93, San Diego, CA. IEEE Press, 1993, pp 34–41
Hauser J, Clausing D. The house of quality. Harvard Business Rev 1988; 5: 63–73
Jacobs S, Kethers S. Improving communication and decision making within quality function deployment. In: Proceedings of the 1st international conference on concurrent engineering, research and application, Pittsburgh (Also in NATURE Report Series 94-13), 1994
Fenton NE. The role of measurement in software safety assessment. In: Proceedings of CSR/ENCRESS conference, Bruges, September 1995. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1995
Boehm B, Bose P, Horowitz E, Lee MJ. Software requirements as negotiated win conditions. In: Proceedings of IEEE conference on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1994, pp 74–83
Macaulay L. Requirements capture as a cooperative activity. In: IEEE symposium on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1993, pp 174–181
Bowers J, Viller S, Rhodden T. Human factors in requirements engineering. Department of Computer Science, University of Lancaster, 1994
Porter ME. Competitive strategy. Free Press, New York, 1980
Davenport T. Process innovation: re-engineering work through information technology. Harvard Business School Press, Boston, 1993
Eden C. Cognitive mapping. Eur Operational Res, 1988; 36: 1–13
Rockart JF, Short JE. The networked organisation and the management of interdependence. In: Scott-Morton M (ed). The corporation in the 1990s: information technology and organisational transformation. Oxford University Press 1991, pp 189–219
Holland CP. Cooperative supply chain management: the impact of inter-organisation information systems. J Strat Inform Syst 1995; 4(2): 117–133
Yu ESK. Modelling strategic relationships for process reengineering. Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, 1994
Swain AD, Weston LM. An approach to the diagnosis and misdiagnosis of abnormal conditions in post accident sequences in complex man machine systems. In: Goodstein L, Andersen H, Olson S (eds). Tasks, errors and mental models. Taylor & Francis, London, 1988
Beer S. The brain of the firm. Wiley, Chichester, 1981
Nielsen J. Usability engineering. Academic Press, Boston, 1993
HMSO. Report of the Inquiry into the London Ambulance Service. HMSO, London, 1993
Sutcliffe AG. Human computer interface design, 2nd end. Macmillan, London, 1995
Lim KY, Long JL. The MUSE method for usability engineering. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1994
Ramesh B, Dhar V. Supporting systems development by capturing deliberations during requirements engineering. IEEE Trans Software Eng 1992; 18(6): 498–510
Goldin L, Berry D. Abstfinder, a prototype abstraction finder for natural language text for use in requirements elicitation: design, methodology and evaluation. In: Proceedings of IEEE conference on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1994, pp 84–93
Neighbors J. An assessment of reuse technology after ten years. In: Frakes WB, (ed). Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on software reuse: advances in software reusability. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1994, pp 6–13
Prieto-Diaz R. Implementing faceted classification for software reuse. Commun ACM 1991; 34(5): 88–97
Jacobsen L. Object oriented development in an industrial environment. In: Proceedings of OOPSLA '87. ACM Press, 1987, pp 183–191
Sutcliffe AG, Maiden NAM. Domain modelling for reuse. In: Frakes WB (ed). Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on software reusability. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1994, pp 169–173
Scheer AW. Enterprise-wide data modelling. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 1994
Johnson P. Human computer interaction. McGraw-Hill, London, 1995
Crinnion J. Evolutionary systems development: a practical guide to the use of prototyping within a structured systems methodology. Pitman, London, 1991
Prieto-Diaz R. Domain analysis: an introduction. ACM SiGSOFT Software Eng Notes 1990; 15(2): pp 47–54
Sutcliffe AG, Maiden NAM. How specification reuse can support requirements analysis. In: Hall P (ed). Proceedings of Software Engineering '90. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1990, pp 489–509
De Marco T. Structured systems analysis and specification. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1978
Jackson MJ. Systems development. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1983
Coad P, Yourdon EE. Object oriented analysis. Yourdon Press, New York, 1991
Rumbaugh J. Object oriented modelling and design. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1991
Yourdon EE. Modern structured analysis. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1989
Mumford E. Designing participatively. Manchester Business School Publications, Manchester, 1983
Eason KD. Information technology and organisational change, Taylor & Francis, London, 1988
Gough PA, Fodemski FT, Higgins SA, S.J.R. Scenarios: an industrial case study and hypermedia enhancements. In: Harrison M, Zave P (eds). Proceedings of RE '95. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1995, pp 10–17
Pfleeger S, Hatton L. How do formal methods affect code quality? Centre for Software Reliability, City University, London, 1994
Bellotti V, Buckingham-Schum S, Maclean A, Hammond N. Multidisciplinary modelling in HCI design in theory and practice. In: Proceedings of CHI '95. ACM Press, 1995, pp 146–153
Rolland C. Modelling the evolution of artifacts. In: IEEE Conference on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1994, pp 216–219
Dardenne A, van Lamsweerde A, Fickas S. Goal directed requirements acquisition. Sci Comput Program 1993; 20: 3–50
Mylopoulos J, Chung L, Nixon B. Representing and using non functional requirements: a process-oriented approach. IEEE Trans Software Eng 1992; 18(6): 483–497
Potts C. Invented requirements and imagined customers: requirements for off-the-shelf software. Briefing for working group 2. In: Proceedings of RE '95. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1995, pp 128–130
Grudin J. Systematic sources of suboptimal interface design in large product development organisations. Human Comput Interact 1991; 6: 147–196
Gotel OCZ, Finkelstein ACW. An analysis of the requirements traceability problem. In: First international conference on requirements engineering. IEEE Computer Society Press, 1994, pp 94–101
Finkelstein ACW, Kramer J, Nuseibeh B. Viewpoints: a framework for integrating multiple perspectives in system development. Int J Software Eng Knowledge Eng, 1992, 2(1): 31–57
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sutcliffe, A. A conceptual framework for requirements engineering. Requirements Eng 1, 170–189 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01236426
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01236426