Theory as a Source of Software and System Requirements

Ruzanna Chitchyan*, Caroline M Bird

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)
173 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Today, when undertaking requirements elicitation, engineers attend to the needs and wants of the user groups considered relevant for the software system. However, answers to some relevant questions (e.g., how to improve adoption of the intended system) cannot always be addressed through direct need and want elicitation. Using an example of energy demand-response systems, this paper demonstrates that use of grounded theory analysis can help address such questions. The theories emerging from such analysis produce a set of additional requirements which cannot be directly elicited from individuals/groups, and would otherwise be missed. Thus, we demonstrate that the theories generated through grounded theory analysis can serve as additional valuable sources of requirements for software and its wider system. This paper extends our previous work by demonstrating how several theories can be constructed and utilised for a single system analysis.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)375-398
Number of pages24
JournalRequirements Engineering
Volume27
Issue number3
Early online date23 May 2022
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 23 May 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research is funded by the UK EPSRC Refactoring Energy Systems (EP/R007373/1) and HoSEM (EP/P031838/1) and EnergyREV(EP/S031863/1) projects. In collaboration with EU REPLICATE project.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).

Research Groups and Themes

  • Algorithms and Complexity
  • Cabot Institute Low Carbon Energy Research
  • Bristol Interaction Group

Keywords

  • requirements
  • requirements elicitation
  • elicitation method
  • Grounded Theory
  • system of systems
  • energy service
  • smart energy
  • energy transition
  • Demand-side response
  • Energy service, Energy transition
  • Case study
  • Systemic concerns, Tacit knowledge

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