skip to main content
10.5555/1929757.1929769acmotherconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PageserConference Proceedingsconference-collections
Article

Reasoning with optional and preferred requirements

Published: 01 November 2010 Publication History

Abstract

Of particular concern in requirements engineering is the selection of requirements to implement in the next release of a system. To that end, there has been recent work on multi-objective optimization and user-driven prioritization to support the analysis of requirements trade-offs. Such work has focused on simple, linear models of requirements; in this paper, we work with large models of interacting requirements. We present techniques for selecting sets of solutions to a requirements problem consisting of mandatory and optional goals, with preferences among them. To find solutions, we use a modified version of the framework from Sebastiani et al. [1] to label our requirements goal models. For our framework to apply to a problem, no numeric valuations are necessary, as the language is qualitative. We conclude by introducing a local search technique for navigating the exponential solution space. The algorithm is scalable and approximates the results of a naive but intractable algorithm.

References

[1]
Sebastiani, R., Giorgini, P., Mylopoulos, J.: Simple and Minimum-Cost Satisfiability for Goal Models. In: Persson, A., Stirna, J. (eds.) CAiSE 2004. LNCS, vol. 3084, pp. 20-35. Springer, Heidelberg (2004).
[2]
Ross, D.: Structured Analysis (SA): A Language for Communicating Ideas. Trans. Soft. Eng. 3(1), 16-34 (1977).
[3]
Dardenne, A., van Lamsweerde, A., Fickas, S.: Goal-directed requirements acquisition. Science of Computer Programming 20(1-2), 3-50 (1993).
[4]
Yu, E.S.: Towards modelling and reasoning support for early-phase requirements engineering. In: Intl. Conf. Requirements Engineering, Annapolis, Maryland, pp. 226-235 (1997).
[5]
van Lamsweerde, A.: Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering: A Guided Tour. In: Intl. Conf. Requirements Engineering, Toronto, pp. 249-263 (2001).
[6]
Liaskos, S., Mcilraith, S.A., Mylopoulos, J.: Goal-based Preference Specification for Requirements Engineering. In: Intl. Conf. Requirements Engineering, Sydney (September 2010).
[7]
Jureta, I.J., Mylopoulos, J., Faulkner, S.: Revisiting the Core Ontology and Problem in Requirements Engineering. In: Intl. Conf. Requirements Engineering, Barcelona, pp. 71-80 (September 2008).
[8]
van Lamsweerde, A.: Requirements engineering: from craft to discipline. In: Intl. Conf. Foundations of Software Engineering, Atlanta, Georgia, pp. 238-249 (November 2008).
[9]
Giorgini, P., Mylopoulos, J., Nicchiarelli, E., Sebastiani, R.: Formal Reasoning Techniques for Goal Models. Journal on Data Semantics 2800, 1-20 (2003).
[10]
Glover, F.: Future paths for integer programming and links to artificial intelligence. Computers and Operations Research 13(5) (1986).
[11]
Bresciani, P., Giorgini, P., Giunchiglia, F., Mylopoulos, J., Perini, A.: TROPOS: An Agent-Oriented Software Development Methodology. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 8, 203-236 (2004).
[12]
Letier, E., van Lamsweerde, A.: Reasoning about partial goal satisfaction for requirements and design engineering. In: Intl. Conf. Foundations of Software Engineering, Newport Beach, CA, pp. 53-62 (2004).
[13]
van Lamsweerde, A.: Reasoning About Alternative Requirements Options. In: Borgida, A., Chaudhri, V.K., Giorgini, P., Yu, E.S.K. (eds.) Conceptual Modeling: Foundations and Applications. LNCS, vol. 5600, pp. 380-397. Springer, Heidelberg (2009).
[14]
van Lamsweerde, A., Letier, E.: Handling obstacles in goal-oriented requirements engineering. Trans. Soft. Eng. 26, 978-1005 (2000).
[15]
Karlsson, L., Höst, M., Regnell, B.: Evaluating the practical use of different measurement scales in requirements prioritisation. In: Intl. Conf. Empirical Software Engineering, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, pp. 326-335 (2006).
[16]
Herrmann, A., Daneva, M.: Requirements Prioritization Based on Benefit and Cost Prediction: An Agenda for Future Research. In: Intl. Conf. Requirements Engineering, Barcelona, pp. 125-134 (September 2008).
[17]
Battiti, R., Brunato, M., Mascia, F.: Reactive Search and Intelligent Optimization. Operations research/Computer Science Interfaces, vol. 45. Springer, Heidelberg (2008).
[18]
Finkelstein, A., Harman, M., Mansouri, S., Ren, J., Zhang, Y.: A search based approach to fairness analysis in requirement assignments to aid negotiation, mediation and decision making. Requirements Engineering J. 14(4), 231-245 (2009).
[19]
Feather, M.S., Cornford, S.: Quantitative risk-based requirements reasoning. Requirements Engineering J. 8, 248-265 (2003).
[20]
Jalali, O., Menzies, T., Feather, M.S.: Optimizing requirements decisions with KEYS. In: International Workshop on Predictor Models in Software Engineering, Leipzig, Germany, pp. 79-86 (2008).
[21]
Maiden, N., Robertson, S.: Integrating Creativity into Requirements Processes: Experiences with an Air Traffic Management System. In: Intl. Conf. Requirements Engineering, Paris, France (2005).
[22]
Thimbleby, H.: Delaying commitment. IEEE Software 5(3), 78-86 (1988).

Cited By

View all

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences
ER'10: Proceedings of the 29th international conference on Conceptual modeling
November 2010
490 pages
ISBN:3642163726
  • Editors:
  • Jeffrey Parsons,
  • Motoshi Saeki,
  • Peretz Shoval,
  • Carson Woo,
  • Yair Wand

Sponsors

  • XCL: Xerox Canada Limited
  • SSOB: Sauder School of Business
  • The ER Institute

In-Cooperation

Publisher

Springer-Verlag

Berlin, Heidelberg

Publication History

Published: 01 November 2010

Check for updates

Qualifiers

  • Article

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)0
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 18 Jan 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

View Options

View options

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media