MUSTER: A Situational Tool for Requirements Elicitation

INTRODUCTION Requirements elicitation is a fundamental part of the software development process, but often considered a major problem area, and widely regarded as one of the more challenging activities within the scope of Requirements Engineering (RE). Heavily dependent on the experience and expertise of the participating analyst, the elicita-tion of requirements is often performed badly in practice, as true experts in this area are few and far between. The subsequent effects of poor software requirements elicitation regularly include costly rework, schedule overruns, poor quality ABSTRACT In this chapter they present a collaborative and situational tool called MUSTER, that has been specifically designed and developed for requirements elicitation workshops, and which utilizes, extends, and demonstrates a successful application of intelligent technologies for Computer Aided Software Engineering and Computer Aided Method Engineering. The primary objective of this tool is to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the requirements elicitation process for software systems development, whilst addressing some of the common issues often encountered in practice through the integration of intelligent technologies. The tool also offers an example of how a group support system, coupled with artificial intelligence, can be applied to very practical activities and situations within the software development process. 621 MUSTER systems, stakeholder dissatisfaction, and project failure (Hickey & Davis, 2002). But despite the obvious need for an appropriate level of structure and rigor, this critical, complex, and potentially expensive activity is more commonly performed in an ad-hoc manner, without a defined process or methodology. Furthermore, many of the current techniques, approaches, and tools for the elicitation of requirements are either unknown or too complex for novices, and a general unwillingness to adopt them by industry, results in a significant gap between requirements elicitation theory and practice (Hickey, 2003). Just as important is the current gap between expert and novice analysts, which can be attributed to a number of factors, not least of which is the extensive skill set and range of experiences that is often required to successfully conduct this difficult yet vital activity (Hickey & Davis, 2003). A lack of systematic methods with situational process guidance, and supporting tools that can easily be applied to real-world situations, are additional reasons for the current state of requirements elicitation in practice. Subsequently, in this chapter the MUSTER tool is presented, which embodies and enhances the situational OUTSET approach for requirements The purpose of this chapter is therefore to present an …

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