Showing papers by "Colette Rolland published in 1994"

Facilitating "fuzzy to formal" requirements modelling

Abstract: Requirements specification methods and techniques have hitherto mainly been concerned with promoting various representation formalisms for formally describing information systems and discussing their expressive power. However, this approach concentrates only partially on the problem. A major issue is how to bridge the gap between ill-defined problem and application situations, and specification of the formal, precise definition of functional requirements of the information system. We outline an extended requirements and information modelling paradigm, based on a number of interrelated meta-models. These models reflect the enterprise and its objectives, its non-functional requirements on the system, re-use of existing specification components, and a model for managing and tracking the specification development process. >

A general framework for describing the requirements engineering process

Abstract: This article concerns automated guidance of the requirements engineering process in a CASE environment. We see guidance as part of a broader framework for process tracing, method engineering and process control which is sketched in the paper. This framework supports the claim that a process knowledge base cannot be built once and for all but must be constantly improved. This leads to the idea of a process knowledge base composed of a set of process chunks which are progressively defined. This is achieved by using the concepts of a guidance meta-model which is the kernel of the paper. >

Experience-based method evaluation and improvement: A process modelling approach

Abstract: Little is known about the actual usage and evaluation of methods especially in the early phases of information systems engineering. This paper therefore advocates an experience-based approach in which methods and tools can be defined, applied, evaluated, and gradually improved. We argue that this requires three ingredients: • a process meta model which can deal with many different situations in a flexible, decision-oriented manner; • a process repository that links process and product traces, guidance, and improvement through carefully defined concept mappings; • a tool interoperability concept in which tool behavior adapts to the present process definition and situation, and where tools automatically trace their own behavior. The interplay of these ingredients is demonstrated in the NATURE requirements engineering environment .

Modeling the evolution of artifacts

Abstract: The particular requirements engineering (RE) process modeling approach presented, advocates the capture of the history RE artifacts. An artifact is viewed as an evolutionary object which evolves as the RE process proceeds. The author proposes a classification of the various kinds of evolution of artifacts and presents a generic model, the evolutionary object model, to structure the RE history kept in the artifact's memory according to this classification. She emphasises the role of RE decisions in the evolutionary process and shows how the rationale of an artifact evolution can be expressed in terms of decisions and stored in the evolutionary object history. >

Tracing the Evolution of Artifacts

Abstract: A model called the Evolutionary Object Model is proposed as a means of keeping track of the Requirements Engineering(RE) decisions, their rationales and their effects on the RE product Under this model an RE artifact is looked upon as an object that can evolve in three ways, by transformation, mutation, and expansion The history of object evolution under these different evolutionary forms is kept track of in the inner, spatial and temporal histories of evolutionary objects respectively In addition, the context in which an evolution occurs as well as the history of the decision making process which has led to it is maintained in the trace

A Generic Approach to Support a Way-of-Working Definition

Abstract: Information System Engineering has made the assumption that an Information System is supposed to capture some excerpt of the real world history and hence has concentrated on systems modelling. Very little attention has been paid to the conceptual modelling process. However the emphasis on system modelling is shifting to process modelling. The particular process modelling approach being presented in this paper advocates the definition of a way-of-working (i.e. process models) to control and guide developers. The paper introduces a classification of the various kinds of evolution of objects and presents a decision-oriented process meta model to structure ways-of-working. We also describe some guidelines, related to our classification of object evolutions, to support method engineers in the task to define a way-of-working.