Workshop Objectives:
Requirements engineering (RE) and project management (PM) are both known to be critical to software project success. RE sets up the foundation
for the phases of the software development process that follow, and PM sets the frame. An improved coordination and collaboration of RE and PM
is expected to improve the outcome of a project. To be able to develop “Trusted Information Systems”, we need an increased understanding and a
better awareness of the roles of the RE and PM activities within the quality assurance process. The goal of this workshop is to investigate the
joint effects that RE and PM may have on the quality of the completed software product.
The goal of this workshop is to investigate the joint effects that RE and PM may have on the quality of the completed software product. The workshop topics are focused on:
- the roles of RE and PM within the process of quality assurance,
- the challenges and issues encountered in the quality assurance practice and the solutions proposed to confront them from both RE and PM perspectives,
- lessons learned from linking RE and PM to improve the quality assurance process.
We invite for the submission of papers until 12th february 2006.
This workshop is the successor of the Workshop on the Interplay of Requirements Engineering and Project Management in Software Projects
(REProMan05)
which has been held in August 2005 in conjunction with the RE´05 conference in Paris.
One of the results of REProMan was a list of four issues having been voted to be the most important ones which should be treated in future: process (specifically, quality assurance), stakeholder selection, requirements prioritization, and effort estimation. Building up on this result, we propose this year’s workshop themes include, but not be limited to:
- The roles of the requirements engineer and the project manager: tasks, inputs, and outputs. We seek answers to questions like how to document and maintain relationships between layers of information, e.g. the requirements specifications and the quality attributes of the resulting software solution? How much information is enough for requirements engineers and project managers to share? How to secure congruence between project plan and requirements specification document, especially in an evolutionary iterative process?
- The gaps between theory and practice, specifically, concerning the interactions between project management and requirements engineering. For instance, what is the influence of the terms of the contract for a software project on its requirements engineering process and on the overall quality of the resulting system? What are the interactions between RE, PM and quality assurance in more mature and less mature organizations? Does ability to merge RE and PM depend on organization’s maturity? Is it easier to merge RE and PM in more mature organizations who have also a well-established quality assurance function and process/product metrics?
- The view of quality assurance as an investment activity. Is it worthwhile to invest in this project? How much will it cost to build it? What factors characterize a suitable investment, and what support can requirements engineers offer to decision-makers in this process? How practitioners know this product is still worth building? Does the amount of time business users invested into the requirements specifications indicate their true desire to have the product and their commitment to make it happen? How to review specifications with quality attributes in mind? Will the product deliver the benefits promised at the outset of the project when the project team were optimistic?
- The deployment of software measurement processes in support of the interactions between requirement engineering, project management and quality assurance. We welcome experience reports, for example, on the application of function points, reuse measurement models, or complexity metrics to answer questions like: How can measurements make RE and PM work for quality assurance? How measurements at the requirements stage of a project can help us to better manage quality related risks?
Expected Outcomes are:
- Identification of benefits and practical risks linking requirements engineering and project
management for software quality achievement;
- the identification of hypotheses from experience reports and open research questions worth further investigation;
- exchange of knowledge and ideas between scientists and practitioners.
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Morning Session
6 paper presentations
Afternoon Session
- We will synthesize the ideas and identify open questions for further research.
- Summary and Conclusion
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The workshop invites participants, researchers as well as practitioners from industry who are responsible for or involved in requirements specification, quality management or project management. A fifty-to-fifty mix of industry and research participants would be ideal for an exchange of knowledge and ideas in both directions.
The workshop is open to all conference participants.
We aim for 10-20 attendees (to allow for intense discussion).
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Paper Submission and Evaluation
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The workshop invites paper submission for oral presentation and inclusion in the online workshop proceedings.
We will be accepting two types of submissions, short position papers and full technical papers.
Both types of papers should tackle one of the topics or questions from the themes section below.
- Position papers (3-6 pages). Short papers, stating the position of the author(s) on any
of the topics within the scope of the workshop. For example, positions papers could describe
a case study in industry or in teaching. Position papers will be evaluated based on their
potential for generating discussion, and on the originality of the positions expressed.
- Technical papers (8-12 pages) Full papers either describe working experience (in industry or teaching)
at the interface of requirements engineering and project management or the results of a research effort.
Submissions will be accepted via email at
andrea.herrmann@informatik.uni-heidelberg.de .
Please, use the Springer LNCS format which you can find at
http://www.springer.de/comp/lncs/authors.html .
All paper submissions will be refereed by the Program Committee. Printed workshop proceedings are planned.
Authors are requested to present their accepted paper at the workshop.
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Important dates:
| 20th March 2006: |
Paper submission |
| 17th April 2006: |
Notification of authors |
| 8th May 2006: |
Camera-ready papers |
| 6th June 2006: |
Workshop |
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| Patrik Berander |
Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden |
| Luigi Buglione |
Ecole de Technologie Superieure, Canada |
| Asa G. Dahlstedt |
University of Skövde, Sweden |
| Maya Daneva |
University of Twente, Netherlands |
| Ralf Fahney |
independent consultant, Germany |
| John Favaro |
independent consultant, Italy |
| Andrea Herrmann |
University of Heidelberg, Germany |
| Frank Houdek |
DaimlerChrysler AG, Germany |
| Lena Karlsson |
Lund University, Sweden |
| Siva Moorthy |
Siemens Communication Software, India |
| Uolevi Nikula |
Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland |
| Olga Ormandjieva |
Concordia University, Canada |
| Barbara Paech |
University of Heidelberg, Germany |
| Björn Regnell |
Lund University, Sweden |
| Luca Santillo |
independent consultant, Italy |
| Rüdiger Weißbach |
IuK Institut für sozialwissenschaftliche Technikforschung,
Lecturer at the University for Applied Sciences Hamburg, Germany |
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