Browsing by Subject "Requirements engineering"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Open Access
Are software engineers' responses to incomplete requirements related to project characteristics?
(IEEE, 2009) Albayrak, Özlem; Albayrak, Duygu; Kiliç, T.
Software requirements quality affects software product quality. For high-quality software products, software requirements must be complete. When faced with incomplete requirements, software engineers attempt to fill the requirements' gaps differently, either by getting feedback from the user or by making assumptions. Assumptions may be explicit or implicit. Explicit assumptions are preferable to implicit assumptions as explicit assumptions can be validated. We conduct an empirical study to determine whether the number of explicit assumptions made by software engineers is related to a project's characteristics. Using data from two CMMI Level 3 companies and 16 projects, we investigated the responses of 92 software engineers to the same incomplete software requirement. Our findings show possible relationships between projects' characteristics and the number of explicit assumptions. ©2009 IEEE.
Open Access
An experiment to observe the impact of UML diagrams on the effectiveness of software requirements inspections
(IEEE, 2009) Albayrak, Özlem
Software inspections aim to find defects early in the development process and studies have found them to be effective. However, there is almost no data available regarding the impact of UML diagram utilization in software requirements specification documents on inspection effectiveness. This paper addresses this issue by investigating whether inclusion of UML diagrams impacts the effectiveness of requirements inspection. We conducted an experiment in an academic environment with 35 subjects to empirically investigate the impact of UML diagram inclusion on requirements inspections' effectiveness and the number of reported defects. The results show that including UML diagrams in requirements specification document significantly impacts the number of reported defects, and there is no significant impact on the effectiveness of individual i nspections. © 2009 IEEE.
Open Access
Incomplete software requirements and assumptions made by software engineers
(IEEE, 2009) Albayrak, Özlem; Kurtoǧlu, Hülya; Biçakçi, M.
Many software engineers make implicit assumptions when working with incomplete software requirements. To study assumptions made by software engineers while converting incomplete requirements to software design or to implementation phase deliverables, we conducted an experiment with 251 software engineers from eight companies. The results of this empirical study showed that how software engineers responded (using source code, pseudo code, or prototype) to an incomplete requirement significantly impacted the number of explicit assumptions they made. We studied relationships between the number of explicit assumptions and the engineers' experience and educational backgrounds. On average, non-computer-background engineers made more explicit assumptions than computerbackground graduates. We found a significant relationship between the engineers' experience and the number of explicit assumptions made. We discuss the results and their implications. © 2009 IEEE.
Open Access
A study to observe relations between software engineers' responses to incomplete requirements and requirements volatility
(2009) Albayrak Ö.; Bicakci, M.; Bozkurt H.
For high quality software, software requirements must be complete. In practice, not all software requirements are complete. In case of incomplete software requirements, software engineers fill in the requirements' gaps by getting feedback from the stakeholders or by making explicit or implicit assumptions. Explicit assumptions can be validated during analysis, while implicit assumptions validation is carried to design and implementation. Thus, compared to implicit assumption, explicit assumptions are better. Software requirements specifications change during different phases of project life-cycle. In an attempt to improve software development processes, we conducted an empirical study to search possible relationships between the number of implicit assumptions made by software engineers and requirements' volatility. This practice paper presents data from three completed projects at one CMMI level 3 company. Within the limit of our data set, our experience shows that possible relationships between projects' requirements volatility and the number of implicit assumptions are worth studying.