News

RE’13 presentation slides now available from the Downloads page.

Key Dates in 2013

July 15: Doctoral Symposium
July 15-16: Workshops & Tutorials
July 17-19: Main Conference

Requirements Engineering as Information Search
and Idea Discovery

Neil Maiden, City University London

Abstract

Creativity has been the subject of considerable research over the last 60 years. This keynote will argue that most requirements work is creative but not recognized as such. It will summarize recent applications of creativity theories and techniques to requirements work, then posit the general case that most requirements activities involve information search and idea discovery, and hence can be characterized as creative. Requirements research reported over the 21 years of this conference series will be reframed using theories of creativity as information search and idea discovery to support this argument, alongside macro-economic drivers and the shifting landscape of computing and design disciplines and conferences. The keynote will end with a call for researchers and practitioners at RE@21 to reframe requirements work as creative endeavors.

Biography

Neil Maiden is Professor of Systems Engineering, Head of the Centre for Human-Computer Interaction Design and academic lead of the Centre for Creativity in Professional Practice at City University London. He received a Ph.D. in Computer Science in 1992. He is and has been a principal and co-investigator on numerous EPSRC- and EU-funded research projects with a total value of £30 million. His research interests include establishing the requirements for complex socio-technical systems, scenario-based design and creativity in everyday work. Neil has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers in academic journals, conferences and workshops proceedings, and co-edited the book Scenarios, Stories and Use Cases.

Neil was Program Chair for the 12th IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering in Kyoto in 2004 and chaired the Steering Committee of the IEEE Requirements Engineering Conference Series from 2010-2012. He is on the Editorial Boards of the IEEE Software and Requirements Engineering Journal. He was Editor of the IEEE Software’s Requirements column from 2005 to 2013. His details are available at Neil's professor page.