HCC: Small: Collaborative Research: Cognitive Approaches to Distributed Software Requirements Engineering

HCC：小型：协作研究：分布式软件需求工程的认知方法

• 批准号: 1217345
• 负责人: Kalle Lyytinen
• 金额: $ 17.33万
• 依托单位: Case Western Reserve University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2012-09-01 至 2016-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1217345&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: HCC; Small; Collaborative; Research; Cognitive

This research seeks to uncover explanations and principles about how requirements for information systems evolve and how they are managed across project contexts. It will enumerate project design workflows and practices to determine how different forms of artifact and process distribution affect requirements engineering goals and project success. Currently there are no rigorous, theory-based approaches to understanding and explaining large-scale distribution of requirements, though there is evidence of its success. Requirements engineering approaches address spatial and social distribution, and to a lesser extent, structural and temporal distribution. Most importantly, the combination of these issues, in total, has not been considered. Consequently, we cannot say which configuration of practices is best suited to achieve specified development goals, such as reduced time to market, or increased software quality and customer satisfaction. New theoretical models and empirical research are needed to understand the effects of distribution on evolving requirements. The project will (1) conduct field studies and ethnography, (2) analyze work procedures via grounded theory and comparative methods, (3) construct tools for data analysis, model building, and model analysis, and (4) analyze models via simulations and goal analyses. It will apply a distributed requirements framework consisting of four forms of distribution (social, spatial, structural, and temporal) and four requirements tasks (discovery, specification, negotiation, monitoring) in conjunction with the theory of distributed cognition to analyze requirements knowledge evolution in software projects. Additionally, it will design new tools that help acquire, model, and analyze distributed requirements workflows. The research aims to develop critical insights on emerging realities in large-scale design projects, which represent one of the drivers for economic growth and new forms of industrial organization. Yet, many software organizations are constrained by methodological and tool factors that do not recognize the increased challenges for requirements engineering. This research highlights the ways in which designers learn to manage the diversity of inputs and constraints, and seeks to understand processes that enhance software-based open innovation in the future.

本研究旨在揭示有关信息系统需求如何演变以及如何跨项目环境进行管理的解释和原则。它将枚举项目设计工作流程和实践，以确定不同形式的工件和流程分布如何影响需求工程目标和项目成功。目前，还没有严格的、基于理论的方法来理解和解释大规模的需求分布，尽管有证据表明它是成功的。需求工程方法解决空间和社会分布，并在较小程度上解决结构和时间分布。最重要的是，这些问题的组合尚未得到考虑。因此，我们不能说哪种实践配置最适合实现特定的开发目标，例如缩短上市时间或提高软件质量和客户满意度。需要新的理论模型和实证研究来了解分布对不断变化的需求的影响。该项目将（1）进行实地研究和人种学，（2）通过扎根理论和比较方法分析工作程序，（3）构建数据分析、模型构建和模型分析工具，以及（4）通过模拟和目标分析来分析模型。它将应用由四种分布形式（社会、空间、结构和时间）和四种需求任务（发现、规范、协商、监控）组成的分布式需求框架，结合分布式认知理论来分析软件项目中的需求知识演化。此外，它将设计新工具来帮助获取、建模和分析分布式需求工作流程。该研究旨在对大型设计项目中的新兴现实提出批判性见解，这些项目代表了经济增长和新的产业组织形式的驱动力之一。然而，许多软件组织受到方法论和工具因素的限制，没有认识到需求工程面临的挑战日益增加。这项研究强调了设计师学习管理输入和约束多样性的方法，并寻求了解未来增强基于软件的开放式创新的流程。