Probing for requirements knowledge to stimulate architectural thinking

Preethu Rose Anish; Balaji Balasubramaniam; Abhishek Sainani; Jane Cleland-Huang; Maya Daneva; Roel J. Wieringa; Smita Ghaisas

doi:10.1145/2884781.2884801

Probing for requirements knowledge to stimulate architectural thinking

Preethu Rose Anish, Balaji Balasubramaniam, Abhishek Sainani, Jane Cleland-Huang, Maya Daneva, Roel J. Wieringa, Smita Ghaisas

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

16 Citations (Scopus)

23 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Software requirements specifications (SRSs) often lack the detail needed to make informed architectural decisions. Architects therefore either make assumptions, which can lead to incorrect decisions, or conduct additional stakeholder interviews, resulting in potential project delays. We previously observed that software architects ask Probing Questions (PQs) to gather information crucial to architectural decision-making. Our goal is to equip Business Analysts with appropriate PQs so that they can ask these questions themselves. We report a new study with over 40 experienced architects to identify reusable PQs for five areas of functionality and organize them into structured flows. These PQflows can be used by Business Analysts to elicit and specify architecturally relevant information. Additionally, we leverage machine learning techniques to determine when a PQ-flow is appropriate for use in a project, and to annotate individual PQs with relevant information extracted from the existing SRS. We trained and evaluated our approach on over 8,000 individual requirements from 114 requirements specifications and also conducted a pilot study to validate its usefulness.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings - 2016 IEEE/ACM 38th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering Companion, ICSE 2016
Place of Publication	Piscataway, NJ
Publisher	IEEE
Pages	843-854
Number of pages	12
ISBN (Electronic)	978-1-4503-3900-1
ISBN (Print)	978-1-5090-2071-3
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/2884781.2884801
Publication status	Published - 14 May 2016
Event	2016 IEEE/ACM 38th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2016 - Austin, United States Duration: 14 May 2016 → 22 May 2016 Conference number: 38

Publication series

Name	Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE)
Publisher	IEEE
Number	38
Volume	2016
ISSN (Print)	0270-5257

Conference

Conference	2016 IEEE/ACM 38th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2016
Abbreviated title	ICSE
Country/Territory	United States
City	Austin
Period	14/05/16 → 22/05/16

Keywords

Architecturally significant requirements
Automated requirement classification
Functional requirements
PQ-flows
Probing Questions (PQs)
Requirements knowledge
2024 OA procedure

Access to Document

10.1145/2884781.2884801

ArticleFinal published version, 538 KBLicence: Taverne

Cite this

Anish, P. R., Balasubramaniam, B., Sainani, A., Cleland-Huang, J., Daneva, M., Wieringa, R. J., & Ghaisas, S. (2016). Probing for requirements knowledge to stimulate architectural thinking. In Proceedings - 2016 IEEE/ACM 38th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering Companion, ICSE 2016 (pp. 843-854). (Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE); Vol. 2016, No. 38). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1145/2884781.2884801

Anish, Preethu Rose ; Balasubramaniam, Balaji ; Sainani, Abhishek et al. / Probing for requirements knowledge to stimulate architectural thinking. Proceedings - 2016 IEEE/ACM 38th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering Companion, ICSE 2016. Piscataway, NJ : IEEE, 2016. pp. 843-854 (Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE); 38).

@inproceedings{c6e7a0129980403e9fabc1523575ecfb,

title = "Probing for requirements knowledge to stimulate architectural thinking",

abstract = "Software requirements specifications (SRSs) often lack the detail needed to make informed architectural decisions. Architects therefore either make assumptions, which can lead to incorrect decisions, or conduct additional stakeholder interviews, resulting in potential project delays. We previously observed that software architects ask Probing Questions (PQs) to gather information crucial to architectural decision-making. Our goal is to equip Business Analysts with appropriate PQs so that they can ask these questions themselves. We report a new study with over 40 experienced architects to identify reusable PQs for five areas of functionality and organize them into structured flows. These PQflows can be used by Business Analysts to elicit and specify architecturally relevant information. Additionally, we leverage machine learning techniques to determine when a PQ-flow is appropriate for use in a project, and to annotate individual PQs with relevant information extracted from the existing SRS. We trained and evaluated our approach on over 8,000 individual requirements from 114 requirements specifications and also conducted a pilot study to validate its usefulness.",

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author = "Anish, {Preethu Rose} and Balaji Balasubramaniam and Abhishek Sainani and Jane Cleland-Huang and Maya Daneva and Wieringa, {Roel J.} and Smita Ghaisas",

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Anish, PR, Balasubramaniam, B, Sainani, A, Cleland-Huang, J, Daneva, M, Wieringa, RJ & Ghaisas, S 2016, Probing for requirements knowledge to stimulate architectural thinking. in Proceedings - 2016 IEEE/ACM 38th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering Companion, ICSE 2016. Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE), no. 38, vol. 2016, IEEE, Piscataway, NJ, pp. 843-854, 2016 IEEE/ACM 38th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering, ICSE 2016, Austin, Texas, United States, 14/05/16. https://doi.org/10.1145/2884781.2884801

Probing for requirements knowledge to stimulate architectural thinking. / Anish, Preethu Rose; Balasubramaniam, Balaji; Sainani, Abhishek et al.
Proceedings - 2016 IEEE/ACM 38th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering Companion, ICSE 2016. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE, 2016. p. 843-854 (Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE); Vol. 2016, No. 38).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review

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AU - Daneva, Maya

AU - Wieringa, Roel J.

AU - Ghaisas, Smita

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Anish PR, Balasubramaniam B, Sainani A, Cleland-Huang J, Daneva M, Wieringa RJ et al. Probing for requirements knowledge to stimulate architectural thinking. In Proceedings - 2016 IEEE/ACM 38th IEEE International Conference on Software Engineering Companion, ICSE 2016. Piscataway, NJ: IEEE. 2016. p. 843-854. (Proceedings - International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE); 38). doi: 10.1145/2884781.2884801

Probing for requirements knowledge to stimulate architectural thinking

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