1. |
- Agrawal, Ankit, et al.
(author)
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Model-Driven Requirements for Humans-on-The-Loop Multi-UAV Missions
- 2020
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In: Proceedings - 10th International Model-Driven Requirements Engineering Workshop, MoDRE 2020. - : IEEE.
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The use of semi-Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or drones) to support emergency response scenarios, such as fire surveillance and search-And-rescue, has the potential for huge societal benefits. Onboard sensors and artificial intelligence (AI) allow these UAVs to operate autonomously in the environment. However, human intelligence and domain expertise are crucial in planning and guiding UAVs to accomplish the mission. Therefore, humans and multiple UAVs need to collaborate as a team to conduct a time-critical mission successfully. We propose a meta-model to describe interactions among the human operators and the autonomous swarm of UAVs. The meta-model also provides a language to describe the roles of UAVs and humans and the autonomous decisions. We complement the meta-model with a template of requirements elicitation questions to derive models for specific missions. We also identify common scenarios where humans should collaborate with UAVs to augment the autonomy of the UAVs. We introduce the meta-model and the requirements elicitation process with examples drawn from a search-And-rescue mission in which multiple UAVs collaborate with humans to respond to the emergency. We then apply it to a second scenario in which UAVs support first responders in fighting a structural fire. Our results show that the meta-model and the template of questions support the modeling of the human-on-The-loop human interactions for these complex missions, suggesting that it is a useful tool for modeling the human-on-The-loop interactions for multi-UAVs missions.
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2. |
- Berger, Thorsten, 1981, et al.
(author)
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The state of adoption and the challenges of systematic variability management in industry
- 2020
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In: Empirical Software Engineering. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1382-3256 .- 1573-7616. ; :25, s. 1755-1797
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Handling large-scale software variability is still a challenge for many organizations. After decades of research on variability management concepts, many industrial organizations have introduced techniques known from research, but still lament that pure textbook approaches are not applicable or efficient. For instance, software product line engineering-an approach to systematically develop portfolios of products-is difficult to adopt given the high upfront investments; and even when adopted, organizations are challenged by evolving their complex product lines. Consequently, the research community now mainly focuses on re-engineering and evolution techniques for product lines; yet, understanding the current state of adoption and the industrial challenges for organizations is necessary to conceive effective techniques. In this multiple-case study, we analyze the current adoption of variability management techniques in twelve medium- to large-scale industrial cases in domains such as automotive, aerospace or railway systems. We identify the current state of variability management, emphasizing the techniques and concepts they adopted. We elicit the needs and challenges expressed for these cases, triangulated with results from a literature review. We believe our results help to understand the current state of adoption and shed light on gaps to address in industrial practice.
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3. |
- Holtmann, J., et al.
(author)
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Cutting through the Jungle: Disambiguating Model-based Traceability Terminology
- 2020
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In: 28th International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE), 31 Aug.-4 Sept. 2020, Zurich, Switzerland. - : IEEE. - 9781728174389
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Traceability, a classic requirements engineering topic, is increasingly used in the context of model-based engineering. However, researchers and practitioners lack a concise terminology to discuss aspects of requirements traceability in situations in which engineers heavily rely on models and model-based engineering. While others have previously surveyed the domain, no one has so far provided a clear, unambiguous set of terms that can be used to discuss traceability in such a context. We therefore set out to cut a path through the jungle of terminology for model-based traceability, ground it in established terminology from requirements engineering, and derive an unambiguous set of relevant terms. We also map the terminology used in existing primary and secondary studies to our taxonomy to show differences and commonalities. The contribution of this paper is thus a terminology for model-based traceability that allows requirements engineers and engineers working with models to unambiguously discuss their joint traceability efforts.
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4. |
- Kasauli, Rashida, 1984, et al.
(author)
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Charting Coordination Needs in Large-Scale Agile Organisations with Boundary Objects and Methodological Islands
- 2020
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In: Proceedings - 2020 IEEE/ACM International Conference on Software and System Processes, ICSSP 2020. - New York, NY, USA : ACM. ; , s. 51-60
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Large-scale system development companies are increasingly adopting agile methods. While this adoption may improve lead-times, such companies need to balance two trade-offs: (i) the need to have a uniform, consistent development method on system level with the need for specialised methods for teams in different disciplines (e.g., hardware, software, mechanics, sales, support); (ii) the need for comprehensive documentation on system level with the need to have lightweight documentation enabling iterative and agile work. With specialised methods for teams, isolated teams work within larger ecosystems of plan-driven culture, i.e., teams become agile “islands”. At the boundaries, these teams share knowledge which needs to be managed well for a correct system to be developed. While it is useful to support diverse and specialised methods, it is important to understand which islands are repeatedly encountered, the reasons or factors triggering their existence, and how best to handle coordination between them. Based on a multiple case study, this work presents a catalogue of islands and the boundary objects between them. We believe this work will be beneficial to practitioners aiming to understand their ecosystems and researchers addressing communication and coordination challenges in large-scale development.
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5. |
- Wohlrab, Rebekka, 1991, et al.
(author)
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Collaborative traceability management: a multiple case study from the perspectives of organization, process, and culture
- 2020
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In: Requirements Engineering. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0947-3602 .- 1432-010X. ; 25:1, s. 21-45
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Traceability is crucial for many activities in software and systems engineering including monitoring the development progress, and proving compliance with standards. In practice, the use and maintenance of trace links are challenging as artifacts undergo constant change, and development takes place in distributed scenarios with multiple collaborating stakeholders. Although traceability management in general has been addressed in previous studies, there is a need for empirical insights into the collaborative aspects of traceability management and how it is situated in existing development contexts. The study reported in this paper aims to close this gap by investigating the relation of collaboration and traceability management, based on an understanding of characteristics of the development effort. In our multiple exploratory case study, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 24 individuals from 15 industrial projects. We explored which challenges arise, how traceability management can support collaboration, how collaboration relates to traceability management approaches, and what characteristics of the development effort influence traceability management and collaboration. We found that practitioners struggle with the following challenges: (1) collaboration across team and tool boundaries, (2) conveying the benefits of traceability, and (3) traceability maintenance. If these challenges are addressed, we found that traceability can facilitate communication and knowledge management in distributed contexts. Moreover, there exist multiple approaches to traceability management with diverse collaboration approaches, i.e., requirements-centered, developer-driven, and mixed approaches. While traceability can be leveraged in software development with both agile and plan-driven paradigms, a certain level of rigor is needed to realize its benefits and overcome challenges. To support practitioners, we provide principles of collaborative traceability management. The main contribution of this paper is empirical evidence of how culture, processes, and organization impact traceability management and collaboration, and principles to support practitioners with collaborative traceability management. We show that collaboration and traceability management have the potential to be mutually beneficial—when investing in one, also the other one is positively affected.
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6. |
- Wohlrab, Rebekka, 1991, et al.
(author)
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Modeling and Analysis of Boundary Objects and Methodological Islands in Large-Scale Systems Development
- 2020
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In: Lecture Notes in Computer Science. - Cham : Springer International Publishing. - 0302-9743 .- 1611-3349. - 9783030625214 ; 12400, s. 575-589
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Large-scale systems development commonly faces the challenge of managing relevant knowledge between different organizational groups, particularly in increasingly agile contexts. In previous studies, we found the importance of analyzing methodological islands (i.e., groups using different development methods than the surrounding organization) and boundary objects between them. In this paper, we propose a metamodel to better capture and analyze coordination and knowledge management in practice. Such a metamodel can allow practitioners to describe current practices, analyze issues, and design better-suited coordination mechanisms. We evaluated the conceptual model together with four large-scale companies developing complex systems. In particular, we derived an initial list of bad smells that can be leveraged to detect issues and devise suitable improvement strategies for inter-team coordination in large-scale development. We present the model, smells, and our evaluation results.
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