Authors:
Anna Zamansky
1
;
Irit Hadar
1
and
Daniel M. Berry
2
Affiliations:
1
University of Haifa, Israel
;
2
University of Waterloo, Canada
Keyword(s):
Human Aspects of Software Development, Inconsistency Management, Requirements Engineering, Requirements Validation Formula.
Abstract:
Inconsistency is a major challenge in requirements engineering. Traditionally, software requirements specifica-tions (SRSs) are expected to be consistent, with the underlying assumption that this consistency is always achievable. However, with the growing complexity of software systems it has become clear that this assump-tion is not always realistic. This has led to new paradigms for inconsistency management, acknowledging that it is not only inevitable, but also even desirable at times, to tolerate inconsistency, even temporarily. However, for these paradigms to be widely accepted in industry, practicing software engineers must thoroughly under-stand the nature of inconsistency in SRSs and the strategies for its handling. This paper proposes a research agenda for preparing practicing software engineers to accept and successfully implement inconsistency man-agement paradigms. As a first step in this direction, the paper describes an ongoing study in which we design an intervention i
nto the perceptions of inconsistency for practicing software engineers. The intervention builds on teaching to them the Zave–Jackson requirements validation formula as an aid for analyzing the types of in-consistency they face, and conducting an empirical study of the effect of this intervention on their inconsisten-cy management.
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