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  • 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

RE'13 Tutorials

A series of tutorials will be held in conjunction with RE'13 to develop skills in and advance awareness of requirements engineering practices. Tutorials will be held before the main conference on July 15th and 16th, 2013.

Monday July 15th, 2013

Full-Day Tutorial:

Half-Day Tutorials:

PM:

Tuesday July 16th, 2013

Full-Day Tutorial:

Half-Day Tutorials:

AM:

PM:

T1. Writing Good Requirements (Full-Day)

Instructor: Sarah Gregory

Abstract: Poor requirements practices are widely recognized as one of the top causes of product defects, project delays, and cost overruns. Yet, a practical solution that balances effective results with the everyday pressures of product development can be hard to find. Teams struggle with questions such as "How much detail is enough?", "What is the difference between requirements and design", and "What requirements practices are right for my project?" Writing Good Requirements is based on a popular and successful course taught to thousands of students at Intel. It covers effective best practices for specifying requirements that work even for complex, market-driven products. The techniques presented are scalable and have been employed on projects within both agile and traditional methodologies. Rather than presenting a rigid methodology or process, the the emphasis is on best practices that can be tailored to a variety of product and project types. The tutorial contains examples from actual requirements documents in original and improved formats. Small-group exercises and discussions reinforce the content and techniques through the day.

Instructor Bio:

Sarah Gregory is a Senior Platform Methodologist at Intel Corporation, focused on research, development, piloting and deployment of Requirements Engineering practices. She is primarily responsible for the deployment of training classes across the company, and is currently working on distance learning and online training and education opportunities to augment instructor-led courses within the curriculum. Sarah's research interests include interpretive challenges among authors and readers in a multilingual context, and pedagogical practices in a global corporate environment. Sarah co-chaired the Seventh Workshop on Requirements Engineering Education and Training (REET) in 2012Sarah holds both Bachelor of Arts and Juris Doctor degrees from Lewis and Clark College (Portland, Oregon, USA), and a Master of Science in Information Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Intended Audience: RE practitioners who want to expand their skill set or learn about practices in an industrial setting.

T3. Applying Model Driven Engineering and Domain Specific Languages to Requirements Engineering (Half-Day)

Instructors: Bruce Trask and Angel Roman

Abstract: Model Driven Engineering (MDE) brings together multiple technologies and critical innovations and formalizes them into effective tools and approaches for all phases of Software Engineering. Requirements Engineering is a perfect candidate as a target for MDE technologies and when properly done can set the groundwork for a stable, effective and fast development cycle. The result of effective application of MDE to Requirements Engineering dovetails synergistically with other MDE work done throughout the software development lifecycle. This tutorial will cover the basic patterns, principles and practices of MDE and how they can be effectively applied to the concerns of Requirements Engineering. The three main MDE categories include the development of Domain Specific Languages (DSL), Domain Specific Editors (and Views), and Domain Specific Transformation Engines or Generators. Expressed in terms of language development technology, these mirror the development of the Abstract Syntax, Concrete Syntax and Semantics of a new Domain Specific Language. This tutorial will cover the basic effective patterns, principles and practices for developing these MDE software artifacts and particularly in the context of eliciting, capturing, prototyping, analyzing, verifying and tracing software requirements for complex domains. The tutorial will show how to apply these concepts as effective means with which to both raise levels of abstraction and domain specificity and thus increase power and value of tools and languages that allow developers to tackle the complexities of today's system and software requirements. It will also show how to effectively leverage abstraction without sacrificing the ability to robustly and precisely refine these abstractions to solve complex real world requirements problems. This tutorial will also include how to integrate the MDE Requirements Engineering artifacts with other software development artifacts and techniques so as to have a holistically consistent software systems and development. It will show how to simultaneously leverage MDE and Agile Software Development to all aspects of Requirements Engineering. To show these patterns and principles in action, this tutorial will cover the details of how to leverage MDE Language Workbenches and frameworks.

Instructor Bios:

Bruce Trask has been developing real world complex Distributed Real-Time Embedded systems for over 24 years specializing in MDE as applied to these systems in the last 10 years. He has been involved with the entire lifecycle of most of the projects he has participated in from conception, through requirements, through development, testing, integration, fielding and support. He has also been teaching Modeling, MDE, Object Orientation, Design Patterns, UML, C++, CORBA and Framework courses for over 10 years. He is a regular speaker/presenter at international software industry conferences. He has delivered tutorials at the OMG. Bruce Trask is the CEO of MDE Systems Inc.

Angel Roman is the Chief Software Architect of MDE Systems and an expert on the Eclipse Development environment and its application frameworks and modeling frameworks. He has presented at various industry conferences on topics such as Software Defined Radios and MDE Technologies. He has been involved with projects concerning MDE, Eclipse Development, Embedded Linux Systems and OSGi.

Both Bruce Trask and Angel Roman have extensive experience fielding real-world MDE and Generative Systems and Tools using various forms of Domain Specific Languages.

Intended Audience: The benefits of the technology are so far reaching that the intended target audience spans technical managers, developers and CTOs. In general, the target audience includes researchers and practitioners who are working on problems related to the requirements, design and implementation of Model Driven Engineering Solutions for varying types and scales of problem domains which have complex requirements. Attendees should be familiar with the basics of Object-Orientation and with programming at different levels of abstraction.

T4.Implement Visual Models for Software Requirements Immediately (Full-Day)

Instructors: Joy Beatty and/or James Hulgan

Abstract: Learn to use visual models for software requirements that you can immediately start using on your projects, no matter how far into the project you are or what development approach you are using. The requirements modeling landscape is populated with an abundance of modeling languages of all types, from BPMN to UML to SYSML to a variety of proprietary and obscure modeling languages. Many of these approaches are too complex in syntax for practical use by business analysts because they are hard to learn and hard to consume. If the business and technical teams cannot consume them without formal training, then they won't be able to validate the requirements are correct and complete. Furthermore, they don't help ensure the requirements are actually needed because they don't tie requirements to business value. An increased barrier to a modeling language adoption, is that many of them require specialized (and often expensive) software. Because many approaches on their own fall short in practical application, we aim to present a simplified package of requirements models that can be used immediately on projects by any requirements practitioner. Examples of models covered include Process Flows, Ecosystem Maps, Report Tables, and Feature Trees. The 15 visual models we cover help organize large amounts of complex information to identify gaps in the requirements, as well as help requirements practitioners identify appropriate project scope by modeling traceability to business value. We offer templates, examples, and exercises to practice creating the 15 models. Understanding how to select models provides one with the ability to communicate any scenario with any audience - customers, developers, product managers, and senior management. Included in the tutorial are tips to learn to use models together to ensure requirements are complete and consistent. The tutorial incorporates techniques using games to create an interactive learning environment where attendees will practice creating, selecting, and relating models. By fully engaging with our practical exercises, tutorial attendees will acquire the skills to communicate the intricacies of business needs. The models taught can all be created using software that they probably already own and use (such as Microsoft Office). The templates for the models are available to the students as a free download. Each student will take home a laminated cheat sheet to help them as a refresher when they get back to their projects. And, two lucky attendees will take home copies of the book Visual Models for Software Requirements that this course is based on.

Instructor Bios:

Joy Beatty is a Vice President at Seilevel, a professional services and training company based in Austin, TX that helps customers create requirements. Joy implements new methodologies and best practices that improve requirements elicitation and modeling. She assists Fortune 500 companies as they build business analysis centers of excellence. Joy has provided training to thousands of business analysts and is CBAP® certified. Joy is actively involved as a leader in the requirements community. She is currently on the IIBA® core team working on version 3 of the BABOK®. Additionally, she writes about requirements methodologies in journals, white papers, and blog posts. Joy graduated from Purdue University with Bachelors of Science degrees in both Computer Science and Mathematics. She is a co-author of the newly published book by Microsoft Press, Visual Models for Software Requirements and is currently working on Software Requirements, 3rd Edition with Karl Wiegers.

James Hulgan is a Requirements Architect at Seilevel, and is an expert practitioner of Seilevel's innovative requirements elicitation and modeling methodologies, having delivered successful projects in the healthcare, semiconductor, and financial services industries. He has participated as an expert panel member and presenter at international requirements conferences such as INCOSE, IEEEE, and REFSQ. He has delivered requirements training to Fortune 1000 companies such as Dell Computer and Shell Oil.

Intended Audience: Requirements Engineers, Business Analysts, and Product Managers of any skill level.

T5. Requirements Quality and Productivity Improvement Based on Examples Usage (Half-Day)

Instructors: Marcelo Tueiv, Marcelo do Carmo Coelho and Erica Mourão da Silva

Abstract: Most of Complex Projects fail due to problems with requirements, and many of these problems are related to the difficulty in translating the results of Requirements Elicitation/analysis to well written software artifacts. Among the problems we encounter, we have sentences that are not clear or ambiguous, lack of a common style and granularity standardization, inconsistencies between the requirements and the difficulty of understanding of the requirements by the stakeholders. These problems are aggravated with the size of the Requirements team. Moreover, much time is spent defining requirements from scratch, when many of the fragments / sentences have been written previously. The objective of this Tutorial is to introduce techniques for creating and using templates filled with examples of requirements, according to the requirement type and scenario (e.g.: Browser Requirements for Non-functional Requirements Work Product, Screen/buttons behaviour for Usability Requirements, Calculations for Business Rules or Reports/Approval for Use Case). With this technique, it is possible to dramatically reduce the number of defects, increase worker productivity and ensure quality from the use of styles and same level of granularity contained in examples previously created. At the end of the Tutorial, the participants will demonstrate the effectiveness of this technique creating, using and measuring examples.

Instructor Bios:

Marcelo Tueiv: Leader of IBM Brazil Business & Requirements Centre of Competence (CoC), Masters, Leader of Requirements Analysis and Software Engineering in IBM Complex Projects, since 2002. Graduate in Computer Science. Master Student (incomplete) in Software Engineering in COPPE/UFRJ.

Marcelo do Carmo Coelho: Business analyst of IBM Brazil & Requirements Centre of Competence (CoC). Software Engineering Master candidate in september/2013 at IPT - USP. About 6 years of practical experience in requirements engineering specifically with UML, Use Cases, Functional and Non-Functional Requirements Gathering/Elicitation.

Erica Mourão da Silva: About 12 years of experience in Information Technology have 7 years experience in Requirements Engineering. Business Analyst / Requirements Analyst at IBM Brazil in Requirements Centre of Competence (CoC). Experience in requirements gathering, elicitation, analysis and specification, use UML, Use Cases, Functional and Non-Functional Requirements, Vision Document, Business Rules, and IBM Tools like Rational RequisitePro, Rational Requirement Composer and Rational Team Concert. Graduate in Computer Science and Post Graduate in Software Engineering - MBA. Master Student - return in progress at University Federal Fluminense (UFF - RJ) - Computer Science - Area Software Engineering

Intended Audience: The participants must have at least 3 years of practical experience in Requirements Engineering (experience with UML, Use Cases, Functional and Non-Functional Requirements Gathering/Elicitation).

T6. Observational and experimental case study research in requirements engineering: Methodology and Examples (Half-Day)

Instructor: Roel Wieringa

Abstract: Case study research is the investigation of a small sample of real-world cases in order to study phenomena and the mechanisms that produce them in the real world. It is used in requirements engineering (RE) research to study problems and successes in the practice of RE, to evaluate the effect and effectiveness of specific RE techniques in practice, and to test new RE techniques in the real world. Case study research is appropriate for phenomena that cannot be simulated in the laboratory. It contrasted to statistical research, in which samples of sufficient size are studied in order to identify statistical regularities that may exist in the population from which the sample was drawn. Case study research cannot use statistical inference to infer population-level generalization, but can use other techniques such as analytical induction, abductive inference, and reasoning by analogy to make partial generalizations to the population from a small number of cases. These generalizations are uncertain in a non-quantifiable way. In this tutorial I explain the structure of observational case study research, in which the researcher does not intervene in the case, and experimental case study research, in particular action research, in which the researcher does intervene in the case. I give checklists for designing, executing and analyzing these kinds of research, give examples from the literature, and discuss with the audience how these checklists can be applied in their own research.

Instructor Bio:

Roel Wieringa (http://www.cs.utwente.nl/roelw) is Chair of Information Systems at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. His research interests include requirements engineering, risk assessment, and design research methodology. He has written two books, on Requirements Engineering and on the Design of Reactive Systems. His next book, Design Science Methodology for Information Systems and Software Engineering will appear in 2014 with Springer.

Intended Audience: Master students, PhD students, Academic and Industrial researchers who want to learn how to study individual cases in a methodologically sound as well as a cost-effective way, and to produce justifiable claims based on real-world cases without claiming more than can be justified.

T7. Model-Based Systems Requirements (Half-Day)

Instructors: JeanMichel Bruel and João Araújo

Abstract: This tutorial aims at presenting an integrated approach for systems requirements elicitation and modeling. The elicitation phase is based on a goal-based approach. Goal-Oriented Requirements Engineering (GORE) is considered an established paradigm in requirements engineering to handle elicitation, specification, analysis, negotiation and evolution of requirements by using goals. GORE approaches, such as KAOS were developed to support the development of large-scale systems by providing different models, where the goal model is naturally the central one. Eliciting requirements for such large-scale models is typically performed in a stepwise manner. The higher-level goals are decomposed into less abstract goals. The results of requirements elicitation must then be mapped into analysis models. In this tutorial, the modeling phase uses SysML, an OMG modeling language for systems getting more and more popularity (used in Airbus, Thales, Continental among others), being taught in several countries and that start to be a pivot language for many others (e.g., Modelica, Simulink). The focus will be on the integration of high-level requirements models with SysML models, and their traceability. A practical case study using models animation will be practiced by attendees. Indeed if no attention is paid to how requirements relate with each other in different requirements phases, there is a danger that the nature of these relationships will only become clear during later stages of software development when problems are more costly to rectify.

Instructor Bios:

JeanMichel Bruel received his Ph.D. from the University Paul Sabatier (Toulouse) in December 1996. From September 1997 to August 2008, he was associate professor at the University of Pau. Member of the LIUPPA (Laboratoire d'Informatique de l'Université de Pau et des Pays de l'Adour) from 2000 to 2008. Currently member of the MACAO team (Modèles, Aspects, Composants pour des Architectures à Objets) of the IRIT (Institut de Recherche en Informatique de Toulouse) CNRS laboratory. His research areas include development of distributed, component-based applications, methods integration, and on the use of formal methods in the Component-Based Software Engineering context. He has defended his "Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches" in December 2006 and obtained in 2008 a full professor position at the University of Toulouse. He is also head of the Computer Science department of the Technical Institute of Blagnac since 2009. Related Experiences Cofounder of the SysMLFrance association [6] Software and Systems Modeling Journal editorial board.

João Araújo holds a PhD in Computer Science from Lancaster University, UK, in the area of Requirements Engineering. He is an Assistant Professor of the Department of Informatics at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. His principal research interests are in Requirements Engineering, Model-Driven Development, Software Product Lines and Early Aspects, where, he has published several papers on this topic in international conferences and workshops. He has participated in the organization and/or program committees of several conferences such as RE, MoDELS, AOSD, OOPSLA, SPLC, CAiSE and ICSE since 2002. Related Experiences RE and RCIS Program Board member Teaching Requirements Engineering in MSc and PhD courses in FCT/UNL. Tutorials on Early Aspects at RE, MoDELS, AOSD conferences.

Intended Audience: Systems engineers, modelers, requirements engineers.

Tutorial Co-Chairs