RE tools survey (part 2, general capabilities in RE

Transcription

1 1 de 14 24/12/ :19 RE tools survey (part 2, general capabilities in RE tools) Thank you very much for participating in this survey, which will allow your tool to become part of a research study to be published in IEEE Software and International Conference on Global Software Engineering, which both address a broad international community of engineers. The survey is structured in two parts: (1) a mandatory part concerning the collaboration and global software development capabilities of RE tools; (2) an optional part concerning the general capabilities of RE tools. The questionnaire includes questions extracted from a new international framework for the evaluation of the requirements engineering tool capabilities. All those questions derived from regulation ISO/IEC TR 24766:2009 are marked with the label "ISO". We estimate that you should be able to fill in the second part of the questionnaire in 15 minutes. The questions are shown as follows. Please, read and answer them carefully. There are 27 questions in this survey Requirements elicitation Please, fill out this section if the RE tool is able to support in identifying stakeholders, capturing and tracing of the business/user requirements, functional requirements, and the quality (non-functional) requirements during elicitation work 1 [0024](ISO) Requirements capture The RE tool supports requirements capture by allowing the user to: Store and manage the documentation for interviews, workshops, and observation Store and manage stakeholder information (e.g. contact lists, comments) Create hierarchical relationships between requirements Include design rationale information directly associated with any hierarchical link Store and manage requirement attributes for classifying or categorizing requirements during identification Store and manage requirement attributes in a variety of formats (e.g. text, enumerated, binary, graphics, descriptions, attachments) Use tool generated inherent attributes (e.g. unique requirement identification, author, time, date, requirements change history) Use flexible search options for requirements by word or attributes (e.g. requirements identifier, words in text files, user and tool generated attributes) Manage the replacement or update requirements by manual or electronic import Use specific facilities to develop reports for display or to generate documents (e.g. Crystal Reports)

2 2 de 14 24/12/ :19 Store and manage graphics and text (e.g. architecture, functional decomposition, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS)) Store and manage user definable attributes and additional information associated with a given requirement (e.g. stakeholders, business process, activity, tasks, policy, constraints) 2 [0025](ISO) Elicitation templates and checklists Templates and checklists provide a consistent structure for recording the requirements descriptions and other requirements related information. The RE tool supports elicitation templates and checklists as follows: By storing and managing templates for elicitation (e.g. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) or Goal Question Metric (GQM)) By storing and managing elicitation checklists By storing and managing prioritization forms 3 [0026](ISO) Regarding requirements elicitation, importing and exporting to and from other sources Requirements should be imported from, or interfaced to users, hardware, and other software systems. The RE tool supports importing and exporting to and from other sources as follows: By importing and exporting to and from other tools (e.g. verification, design, spreadsheets, project management, documents) By importing and exporting to and from various standard file formats (e.g. Comma Separated Value (CSV), extensible Markup Language (XML)) By providing an OMG Requirements Interchange Format (ReqIF/RIF) compatibility for exchanging requirements information (ReqIF, formerly RIF, defines an open, non-proprietary exchange format) 4 [0027](ISO) Elicitation documentation The output from the entire requirements elicitation tasks should be stored, retrieved, and edited in various formats. The RE tool supports elicitation documentation as follows: By storing and managing textual requirements statements using basic text processor, spell and grammar checker (e.g. work spelling check, passive vs. active voice)

3 3 de 14 24/12/ :19 By storing and managing non-textual requirements in a specific format (e.g. bit-mapped graphics, vector graphics, tables, equations, or formal logic notations) 5 [0028]Comments Fill in this box if you wish to comment on the topics on this page or if you have experienced difficulties with them: Please write your answer here:

4 4 de 14 24/12/ :19 Requirements analysis and specification Please, fill in this section if the RE tool is able to support the decomposition of requirements into functional and quality (non-functional) requirements, and the analysis of requirements feasibility and risk (requirements analysis), or if the RE tool is able to support the specification of requirements in a consistent, accessible, and reviewable manner (requirements specification) 6 [0029](ISO) Quality requirements analysis Quality requirements analysis involves significant architectural and design decisions. The RE tool supports quality requirements analysis as follows: By storing and managing quality requirements in quality attributes, policies, or constraints By storing and managing the results of the rationale of quality attributes trade-off 7 [0030](ISO) Feasibility analysis Feasibility analysis evaluates the possibility of implementing each requirement at acceptable cost and performance. It also identifies technical obstacles. The RE tool supports feasibility analysis as follows: By storing and generating checklists or templates for various analysis (e.g. technical, economical, and operational analysis) By storing and managing rationale of feasibility analysis 8 [0031](ISO) Attribute analysis User defined attributes such as risk, priority, and cost provides metrics for tracking requirements based on project needs. These attributes are assignable to each requirement. The RE tool supports the tracking of any attribute(s) user defined or tool provided as follows: By storing and managing attributes in various formats (e.g. text, numeric, graphics, attachments) By detecting and flagging missing attributes By storing, sorting, grouping and ordering of attributes By managing changes to attributes By maintaining historic information on the requirements with the use of various requirements attributes (e.g. time, owner, history of requirement changes, who changed it, when it was done, why it was done) 9 [0032](ISO) Risk analysis and management

5 5 de 14 24/12/ :19 Risk analysis provides a standard approach to identify and document potential risks, and propose strategies for mitigating them. Risk management is an approach to identifying and documenting risk factors, evaluating their potential severity, and proposing strategies for mitigating them. The RE tool supports risk analysis and management as follows: By exchanging information pertinent to risk analysis and management with external risk analysis and management tools By maintaining relationship of requirements to risks raised and risks mitigated 10 [0033](ISO) Requirements specification documentation The output from the entire requirements specification task should be stored, retrieved, and edited in various formats. The RE tool supports requirements specification documentation as follows: By generating reports that identifies the exceptions for each functional requirement By exporting document in standard formats (e.g. Rich Text Format (RTF), MS Word) By generating user defined or tool provided templates (e.g. military standard formats) By checking the document through spell checking, grammar checking, data dictionaries, and acronym tables By generating presentation-quality charts and graphs in standard formats (e.g. PIC, PNG, JPEG, GIF) By generating the output of the specification in a finished form, including: page security markings, graphics or figures, user definable tables, and indexes By synchronizing changes between the RE tool and formatted document (complete loop between RE tool and formatted document) 11 [0034](ISO) Modeling Modeling analysis depicts the requirements at a high level of abstraction. Such models include dataflow diagrams, entity relationship diagrams, or UML diagrams. The RE tool supports modeling analysis as follows: By importing and exporting to and from modeling tools and displaying the results By storing and managing templates for goal-oriented scenarios (e.g. simulations and modeling business scenarios, strategic issues) By storing and managing user defined scenarios

6 6 de 14 24/12/ :19 By evaluating requirements based on business goals 12 [0035]Modeling and specification languages The RE tool supports the storage and display of: Natural language statements Yes No I don't know Context diagrams Conceptual domain models Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) Goal models Systems Modeling Language (SysML) artifacts Unified Modeling Language (UML) artifacts Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs) Entity/Relationship (E/R) diagrams 13 [0036]Comments Fill in this box if you wish to comment on the topics on this page or if you have experienced difficulties with them: Please write your answer here:

7 7 de 14 24/12/ :19 Requirements verification, validation and management Please, fill in this section if the RE tool is able to support the various tests and evaluation means in verifying and validating the requirements (requirements verification and validation), or if the RE tool is able to support the monitoring of the changes and the maintenance of the requirements, thus ensuring that the requirements accurately reflect the product (requirements management) 14 [0037](ISO) Verification and validation (V&V) The RE tool supports V&V as follows: By generating exception reports on requirements that do not have verification plan cases and verification plan cases that are not linked to requirements By generating exception reports on requirements that do not have validation plan cases and validation plan cases that are not linked to user requirements By supporting review and inspection of verification plans and procedures By supporting review and inspection of validation plans and procedures By storing and managing verification plans and verification procedures By storing and managing validation plans and validation procedures By generating exception reports on verification plan cases that do not have verification procedures and verification procedures that are not linked to verification plan cases By generating exception reports on validation plan cases that do not have validation procedures and validation procedures that are not linked to validation plan cases By providing standard format for interfacing to verification tools By providing standard format for interfacing to validation tools By implementing some built-in requirements checks (i.e. requirements verification capabilities determining whether requirements are complete, consistent, correct, modifiable, ranked, traceable, unambiguous, understandable or verifiable) 15 [0038](ISO) Baseline of the requirements Once the requirements artifacts are in-process validated and approved by the user and/or stakeholders, each artifact is deemed a baseline. A baseline is the agreed upon and approved set of requirements. The RE tool supports baseline of the requirements as follows: By storing and managing a baseline document Through version controlling of baseline requirements By generating reports that compare and contrast baselines versions

8 8 de 14 24/12/ :19 By providing read and write protection of baseline products 16 [0039](ISO) Requirements change management Change management tracks changes to requirements and ensures that approved changes are communicated to all affected stakeholders. The RE tool supports requirements change management as follows: By managing version identification (e.g. version number, date, time of creation or revision) By providing check in and out capabilities of the baseline to add, change, update requirements By providing flexible search criteria for all requirements artifacts affected by the changed requirements By managing the change status (e.g. acceptance or approval, for pending changes) By storing and generating electronic change requests form and templates By accessing and distributing electronic forms and electronic mail notification By generating requirements modification history reports that should include, change author, change id, date of change, change status such as accepted, rejected or pending 17 [0040](ISO) Project management Project management applies to managing resources, schedules, and commitment of the requirements. While it is not the role of the RE tool set to perform project management, project management needs to keep track of the status of requirements. The RE tool supports project management as follows: By recording, tracking, and reporting the status of the overall requirements management process By exchanging information pertinent to project management with external project management tools 18 [0041]Open or closed data model By ensuring that the fundamental data structures of the application have a standard format, external components can access the information they need at run-time without requiring a complex protocol. The RE tool supports the open data model as follows:

9 9 de 14 24/12/ :19 By providing "scriptability" (i.e. external applications can record the user s actions and execute any recorded command) By providing "examinability" (i.e. external programs can examine and modify the data structures of an application) By providing a standard format for important application data structures, which is completely accessible to all external programs while the application is running By providing standards for how operations and their parameters and results are represented Enabling external applications to monitor and execute operations provided to operate on the data 19 [0042]Comments Fill in this box if you wish to comment on the topics on this page or if you have experienced difficulties with them: Please write your answer here:

10 10 de 14 24/12/ :19 Traceability and other tool capabilities 20 [0043](ISO) Traceability The RE tool supports traceability as follows: By storing and managing the identification and documentation of stakeholders and their roles and responsibilities By displaying of traceability in textual and/or graphical form Through flexible exporting of traceability matrix in both textual and graphical forms (e.g. Comma Separated Value (CSV), open text format, extensible Markup Language (XML)) By tracing the baseline requirements to a specific product release (specification tree) By searching for and tracing of specific versions of requirements By storing and managing references and links to source documents By generating reports that compare current and previous versions when a source document is updated By automatically maintaining the traces By enabling horizontal traceability among related items in work groups or product components Through tracing across tools boundaries 21 [0044](ISO) Flexible tracing The RE tool supports flexible tracing as follows: Forward and backward tracing One to many and many to one tracing Text to text tracing Text to graphics tracing Graphics to graphics tracing Elements within graphics tracing Tables and cells within a table tracing 22 [0045](ISO) Bi-directional tracing The RE tool supports bi-directional tracing of:

11 11 de 14 24/12/ :19 Requirements to system elements The allocation of requirements to system elements Rationale, assignments, criticality, test and validation to the requirements, allocation, and system elements User needs and requirements Requirements to parent requirements or user requirements Requirements to child requirements or design elements 23 [0046](ISO) Traceability analysis During requirements analysis, changes must be documented. Traceability establishes and tracks the linkage between each requirement and its source, proving insight into the overall project status. The RE tool supports traceability analysis as follows: By generating traceability reports to identify exceptions in user requirements in the analysis phases to functional requirements By generating a report for missing and/or orphan requirements By generating a report that identifies changes from/to a requirement throughout the development life cycle By generating reports of traceability attributes (e.g. category, number of approval or unapproved, number of changes, number of pending) By generating and exporting traceability matrix tables By generating a status report for the status of each requirement based on user defined or tool provided attributes 24 [0047](ISO) RE tool administrative information In many projects, versions can be distributed on different hardware platforms. In this case, administrative information will be needed to monitor system wide use. The RE tool supports this information as follows: By providing project information (e.g. project size, concurrent users, and number of analyst) By providing user information indicating single user or multiple concurrent user environment By providing platform information indicating which platforms and operating systems support the tool By providing database information indicating which database it uses (proprietary or commercial)

12 12 de 14 24/12/ :19 By providing hardware and/or software information indicating hardware and/or software configuration requirements (e.g. memory requirements, CPU requirements, disk space requirements, browsers) 25 [0048](ISO) Graphical user interface To improve the usability of the tool, various capabilities of GUI should be supported. The RE tool supports graphical user interface as follows: By providing standard Windows, UNIX, Mac environment capabilities (e.g. multi-windows, open multiple files concurrently) By providing multiple windows or views into the tool (e.g. a change in one view will automatically reflect in all other views) By providing an interactive graphical input and manipulation of data By enabling web browser interface By providing edit, undo, cut, and paste function By providing an ability for doing one thing while users are looking at another (e.g. run a report and look at a requirement at the same time) 26 [0049]Data integration It is almost inevitable that different parts of the organization will use different systems to produce, store, and search for their critical data, thus leading to the necessity of combining information from these various systems. The RE tool supports data integration by using: Special-purpose applications that directly access sources of interest and combine the data retrieved from those sources with the application itself Application-integration frameworks or component-based frameworks which employ a standard data or programming model (e.g. CORBA, J2EE) to provide the application with well-defined interfaces in order to access data and other applications, and to add new data sources Workflow systems to provide application developers with a higher-level abstraction against which to program, and the use of a more process-oriented model Digital libraries with portal-style or meta-searchengine integration Data warehouses, built by loading data from one or more data sources into a newly defined schema in a relational database, to provide users with a powerful, high-level query language that can be used to combine, contrast, analyze, and otherwise manipulate

13 13 de 14 24/12/ :19 their data Database federation to provide users with a virtual data warehouse which removes the need to move any of the data, provides access to "live" data and functions, and efficiently combines data from multiple sources of different types by using a single arbitrarily complex query 27 [0050]Comments Fill in this box if you wish to comment on the topics on this page or if you have experienced difficulties with them: Please write your answer here:

14 14 de 14 24/12/ :19 Thank you very much for your participation! Please submit by :00 Submit your survey. Thank you for completing this survey.