A controlled experiment to assess the impact of system architectures on new system requirements

While much research attention has been paid to transitioning from requirements to software architectures, relatively little attention has been paid to how new requirements are affected by an existing system architecture. Specifically, no scientific studies have been conducted on the “characteristic”...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Requirements engineering 2010-06, Vol.15 (2), p.215-233
Main Authors: Ferrari, Remo, Miller, James A., Madhavji, Nazim H.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Architecture
Computer architecture
Computer programs
Computer Science
Empirical analysis
End users
Hypotheses
Management
Process engineering
RE'09 Special Issue
Requirements
Research methodology
Resultants
Software
Software Engineering
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Summary:While much research attention has been paid to transitioning from requirements to software architectures, relatively little attention has been paid to how new requirements are affected by an existing system architecture. Specifically, no scientific studies have been conducted on the “characteristic” differences between the newly elicited requirements gathered in the presence or absence of an existing software architecture. This paper describes an exploratory controlled study investigating such requirements characteristics. We identify a multitude of characteristics (e.g., end-user focus, technological focus, and importance) that were affected by the presence or absence of an SA, together with the extent of this effect. Furthermore, we identify the specific aspects of the architecture that had an impact on the characteristics. The study results have implications for RE process engineering, post-requirements analysis, requirements engineering tools, traceability management, and future empirical work in RE based on several emergent hypotheses resultant from this study.
ISSN:0947-3602
1432-010X
DOI:10.1007/s00766-010-0099-3