Citation for published version (APA): Bollen, P. W. L. (2004). On the applicability of requirements determination methods s.n.

Transcription

1 University of Groningen On the applicability of requirements determination methods Bollen, Petrus Wilhelmus Laurentius IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite from it. Please check the document version below. Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Publication date: 2004 Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Bollen, P. W. L. (2004). On the applicability of requirements determination methods s.n. Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum. Download date:

2 On the applicability of requirements determination methods P.W.L. Bollen

3

4 RIJKSUNIVERSITEIT GRONINGEN On the applicability of requirements determination methods Proefschrift ter verkrijging van het doctoraat in de Bedrijfskunde aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen op gezag van de Rector Magnificus, dr. F. Zwarts, in het openbaar te verdedigen op donderdag 9 december 2004 om uur door Petrus Wilhelmus Laurentius Bollen geboren op 12 juli 1959 te Maastricht

5 Promotor: Prof. Dr. Ir. J.L. Simons Beoordelingscommissie: Prof. Dr. S. Brinkkemper Prof. Dr. R. Wieringa Prof. Dr. Ir. H. Wortmann ISBN:

6

7 Published and distributed by P.W.L. Bollen Pergamyndonk GZ Maastricht the Netherlands CIP-DATA KONINKLIJKE BIBLIOTHEEK Bollen, Petrus Wilhelmus Laurentius On the applicability of requirements determination methods. Thesis Rijksuniversiteit Groningen With Summary in Dutch. ISBN: NUR 983, 992 Subject headings: Requirements determination, requirements specification, Natural Language Modeling 2004, P.W.L. Bollen, Maastricht All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted or utilized in any form or by any electronic,mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording or in any information storage or retrieval sytem, without prior written permission from the copyright owner.

8 To Anjie and Trisha

9

10 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank all the people that have made the finalisation of this thesis possible. I would especially thank John Simons, for being an inspiring Ph. D. supervisor. Furthermore, I would like to thank the members of the dissertation committee: Sjaak Brinkkemper, Roel Wieringa and Hans Wortmann for their constructive criticism, which has helped to improve the quality of this thesis. Furthermore, I would like to thank the former members of the former department of Information Science at the faculty of Economics and Business Administration at Maastricht University, who inspired me to write this thesis. A special word of thanks is for Shir Nijssen who showed me, how to be persistent in carrying on research, even in an unfavourable academic climate. Another word of thanks is to my former colleague in the department of Logistics and Strategy at Maastricht University: Geert Duysters. Thanks Geert for your efforts in helping me find a suitable academic environment for finalizing this thesis. The research that is contained in this thesis, was started 11 years ago. In this period many changes have taken place in my personal life. I want to dedicate this thesis to my wife Anjie, who has helped me in achieving my goals with her love and understanding and to our daughter Trisha, who has enriched our lives and has positively effected the conditions under which this thesis has been finalized. Peter Bollen October, 2004

11

12 CONTENTS OF THE THESIS Chapter 1: Introduction Subject of study: requirements determination Requirements determination: Translating domain requirements into model requirements Requirements determination: field of study Organization of chapter History of requirements determination Requirements determination and information systems development Roles in requirements determination The way of modeling, way of working and way of controlling in requirements determination Substeps in requirements determination Eras in requirements determination Conclusions on requirements determination as field of study Research goal Research approach and outline of the thesis Research approaches Justification of the design-research approach Structure of thesis and research question(s) References 16 Chapter 2: Criteria for requirements determination methods The criteria for RDMs found in the literature The domain richness criterion Reasons in the literature for systems failure caused by insufficient requirements determination Proposed techniques in the literature to overcome insufficient requirements determination Characteristics of application domains Definition of the domain richness criterion The completeness criterion The efficiency criterion The formality criterion Conclusions on the quality criteria for a RDM References 37

13 Chapter 3: Evaluation of existing RDM design alternatives Introduction A survey of approaches for requirements determination from the literature Data oriented approaches in requirements determination Process oriented approaches in requirements determination Object oriented approaches in requirements determination The Business Process Engineering approach: ARIS The suitability of existing approach families for requirements determination The extended (or enhanced) Entity-Relationship approach Deficiencies in the (E)ER way of modeling Deficiencies in the (E)ER way of working Object-role Modeling (ORM) Deficiencies in the ORM way of modeling Deficiencies in the ORM way of working The Unified Modeling Language (UML) Deficiencies in the UML way of modeling Deficiencies in the UML way of working Conclusions on the way of- modeling, -working, and controlling for the Requirements determination approaches from the literature Overall modeling deficiencies Modeling deficiencies regarding the data model for the way of modeling Modeling deficiencies regarding the static constraints for the way of modeling Modeling deficiencies regarding the dynamic constraints for the way of modeling Modeling deficiencies regarding the static derivation (rules) for the way of modeling Modeling deficiencies regarding the dynamic rules for the way of modeling Modeling deficiencies regarding the way of working and way of controlling Summary of Modeling deficiencies in the EER, ORM and UML approaches The suitability of existing approaches for requirements determination with respect to the completeness, domain richness, efficiency, and formality criteria References 74

14 Chapter 4: Operationalized design specification Introduction RDM demands for the way of modeling RDM demands for completeness in the way of modeling RDM demands for the domain richness in the way of modeling RDM demands for the efficiency in the way of modeling RDM demands for the formality in the way of modeling RDM demands for the way of working RDM demands for completeness in the way of working RDM demands for the domain richness in the way of working RDM demands for the efficiency in the way of working RDM demands for formality in the way of working RDM demands for the way of controlling RDM demands for efficiency in the way of controlling RDM demands for formality in the way of controlling Conclusions References 91 Developing an alternative design for a requirements determination method 92 Chapter 5: The way of modeling in Natural Language Modeling Introduction Organization of chapter Names Example 5.1: University Enrolment part The name primitive The natural language axiom Roles Intention and Extension Fact types Naming convention fact types Example 5.1: university enrolment part Compound referencing schemes The Basic Information Model NLM modeling constructs for the encoding of extensional constraints Definition of Population state constraints Definition of Population state transition constraints Definition of Derivation rule constraints Definition of Event occurrence, Event, Event type and Impulse type constraints 112

15 5.9 The NLM requirements specification for a given UoD The NLM Requirements specification for the University Enrolment UoD The University Enrollment case study description revisited Conclusions on the way of modeling in the NLM RDM The added value of the NLM requirements specification language References 122 Chapter 6: The way of working and the way of controlling in Natural Language Modeling Introduction Organization of chapter The design procedure for a simple basic information model The verbalization transformation The grouping transformation The classification and qualification transformation The atomization procedure The procedure for integrating BIMs in NLM Conflicts on naming, synonyms and homonyms Specialization and generalization relationships Identifier, cardinality and domain conflict The population state constraint modeling procedures The derivation of uniqueness constraints The derivation of set comparison constraints The population state transition constraint modeling procedure The derivation rule constraint procedure The impulse constraint procedure The way of controlling in NLM The demarcation of the requirements determination project The required precedence of the requirements determination process in terms of the way of working Resource planning for a requirements determination project in NLM s way of working Conclusions on the way of working and the way of controlling in NLM The added value of the NLM requirements determination method References 171

16 Chapter 7: Conclusions, general discussion and recommendations Introduction Organization of chapter Research findings Research methodology Future MIS research proposals Recommendations for practitioners in the MIS field Application of NLM in practice Concluding remarks 188 Appendix A: The specification of the constraint types in the NLM requirements specification language 191 A.1 Introduction 191 A.2 Population state constraints 191 A.3 Population state transition constraints 192 A.4 Derivation rule constraints 194 A.5 Impulse constraints 199 A.5.1 Impulse and impulse type 201 A.6 References 209 Appendix B: The meta model for the NLM requirements specification: 211 B.1 References 215 Summary (in dutch) 217 Curriculum vitae 219

17

18 LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES Fig. 1.1 Requirements determination and fields of study... 3 Fig. 1.2 The roles in the requirements determination process in general... 6 Fig. 1.3 The roles in the requirements determination process in the ERP era Fig. 1.4 The design research cycle and the chapters in this thesis Fig. 3.1 Domain semantics and representation in EER model I Fig. 3.2 Domain semantics and representation in EER model II (taken from fgure 3.17 in McFadden et al., 1999:108) Fig. 3.3 (a) ER, (b) XER and (c) EER cardinality constraints (taken from Liddle et al. (1993) and McFadden et al. (1999)) Fig. 3.4 Domain semantics and representation in EER model III Fig. 3.5 Domain semantics and representation in ORM model I Fig. 3.6 Domain semantics and representation in ORM model II Fig. 3.7 Domain semantics and representation in ORM model III Fig. 3.8 Domain semantics and representation in ORM model IV Fig. 3.9 Lack of coherence in UML class diagram and UML state chart diagram Fig Two different object instances of the class House Inhabitant Fig Generalization transformation using abstract class construct Fig. 5.1 Example Vandover University Enrollment (example 5.1) Fig. 5.2 Roles and sentence group template for university enrollment example Fig. 5.3 Example legend for sentence groups Fig. 5.4 Naming convention fact type for student at Vandover university Fig. 5.5 Example integrated Ohoadover enrollment system Fig. 5.6 Fact types and sentence group templates with compound referencing scheme for student from the university enrolment example part Fig. 5.7 Naming convention fact type for student in the integrated UoD Fig. 5.8 Extended example legend for fact types Fig. 5.9 Basic information model Ohoadover university enrollment Fig NLM requirements specification (I):BIM and population constraints Fig NLM requirements specification (II):derivation rule- and impulse type constraints Fig NLM requirements specification (III):impulse type constraints Fig. 6.1 The way of working in the NLM requirements determination method Fig. 6.2 The verbalization transformation Fig. 6.3 real-life ABC invoice document (example 6.1) Fig. 6.4 Result of verbalization transformation of example Fig. 6.5 Result of grouping transformation of example Fig. 6.6 Graphical notation sentence group for (a part of) example Fig. 6.7 Initial application concept repository for (a part of) example Fig. 6.8 Application of naming convention fact types in NLM Fig. 6.9 Result of classification/qualification transformation of example Fig Result of atomization transformation of example Fig Basic information model for example 6.1 with uniqueness constraint(s) Fig Basic information model for example 6.1 with uniqueness and setcomparison constraint(s)

19 Fig Basic information model for example 6.1 with uniqueness, set comparison and transition constraint(s) Fig Basic information model for example 6.1 with uniqueness, set comparison, transition constraint and derivation rule constraints Fig Complete NLM requirements specification for example 6.1 that contains a basic information model with uniqueness, set comparison, transition constraint, derivation rule constraints and impulse constraints Fig AON network for activities in a NLM requirements determination project (I) Fig AON network for activities in a NLM requirements determination project(ii) Fig. 7.1 Relationship between research (sub) questions) Fig. A.1 Example legend for uniqueness-, exclusion-, subset- and equality- population state constraints Fig. A.2 Example legend for population state transition constraints Fig. A.3 Example legend for derivation rule constraint Fig. A.4 Two different event types that trigger the same derivation rule Fig. A.5 Two derivation rules that create instances of the same fact type Fig. A.6 Event triggering a derivation rule when a condition is satisfied (impulse) Fig. A.7 Example legend type constraints Fig. A.8 The possible temporal characteristic of impulse(s) (types) Fig. B.1 Information meta model for BIM and population constraints in NLM Table 2.1 Criteria for Requirements Specification methods Table 2.2 Dimensions that characterize the application domain Table 2.3 The definition of the domain richness criterion Table 2.4 Types of rules according to Loucopoulos and Layzell (1989:264) Table 2.5 Types of rules versus perspectives (Olle et al.,1988; Loucopoulos and Layzell, 1989) Table 2.6 The definition of the completeness criterion Table 2.7 The definition of the efficiency criterion Table 2.8 The definition of the formality criterion Table 2.9 Summary of the RDM criteria and definitions Table 3.1 Main findings of Peckham and Maryanski survey (Peckham and Maryanski, 1988:181) Table 3.2 Comparison families of approaches found in the literature Table 3.3 Summary of the comparison of EER, ORM and UML approaches on modeling deficiencies, Table 3.4 Comparison EER, ORM and UML approaches on completeness, domain richness, efficiency and formality criteria for the way of modeling, way of working and way of controlling Table 7.1 Types of rules within perspectives for completeness criterion Table 7.2 Requirements method demands for the way of modeling Table 7.3 Requirements method demands for the way of working Table 7.4 Requirements method demands for the way of controling