Home > Research > Publications & Outputs > Requirements elicitation

Associated organisational unit

View graph of relations

Requirements elicitation: towards the unknown unknowns

Research output: Contribution in Book/Report/Proceedings - With ISBN/ISSNConference contribution/Paperpeer-review

Published
Publication date2013
Host publicationProceedings of the 21st IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering (RE’13)
Place of PublicationPiscataway, N.J.
PublisherIEEE
Pages92-104
Number of pages13
ISBN (print)9781467357654
<mark>Original language</mark>English
EventProc. 21st IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering (RE’13) - Rio de Janiero, Brazil
Duration: 22/07/201326/07/2013

Conference

ConferenceProc. 21st IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering (RE’13)
Country/TerritoryBrazil
CityRio de Janiero
Period22/07/1326/07/13

Conference

ConferenceProc. 21st IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering (RE’13)
Country/TerritoryBrazil
CityRio de Janiero
Period22/07/1326/07/13

Abstract

Requirements elicitation research is reviewed using a framework categorising the relative ‘knowness’ of requirements specification and Common Ground discourse theory. The main contribution of this survey is to review requirements elicitation from the perspective of this framework and propose a road map of research to tackle outstanding elicitation problems involving tacit knowledge. Elicitation techniques (interviews, scenarios, prototypes, etc.) are investigated, followed by representations, models and support tools. The survey results suggest that elicitation techniques appear to be relatively mature, although new areas of creative requirements are emerging. Representations and models are also well established although there is potential for more sophisticated modelling of domain knowledge. While model-checking tools continue to become more elaborate, more growth is apparent in NL tools such as text mining and IR which help to categorize and disambiguate requirements. Social collaboration support is a relatively new area that facilitates categorisation, prioritisation and matching collections of requirements for product line versions. A road map for future requirements elicitation research is proposed investigating the prospects for techniques, models and tools in green-field domains where few solutions exist, contrasted with brown-field domains where collections of requirements and products already exist. The paper concludes with remarks on the possibility of elicitation tackling the most difficult question of ‘unknown unknown’ requirements.