Managing Requirements Knowledge

Requirements engineering is one of the most complex and at the same time most crucial aspects of software engineering projects. It typically involves different stakeholders with different backgrounds and different priorities. Constant changes in both the problem and the solution domain make the work of the stakeholders extremely dynamic. New problems are discovered, additional information is needed, alternative solutions are proposed, several options are evaluated, and new hands-on experience is gained on a daily basis. The knowledge needed to engineer and use requirements is immense, often interdisciplinary and constantly expanding. It typically includes engineering and management information, as well as psychological aspects of collaboration and best practices. This book discusses systematic means for managing requirements knowledge and its owners as valuable assets, which help organizations in leveraging the knowledge at their disposal. It focuses on potentials and benefits of "lightweight," modern knowledge management technologies such as ontologies, semantic Wikis, data mining, machine learning, and recommender systems applied to requirements engineering. The 17 chapters are authored by some of the most renowned researchers in the field, distilling the discussions held over the last four years at the Managing Requirements Knowledge workshop series. They present novel ideas, emerging methodologies, frameworks, tools and key industrial experience in capturing, representing, sharing, and reusing knowledge in requirements engineering. While the book primarily addresses researchers and graduate students, practitioners in industry will also benefit from the concrete field reports, novel ideas and alternative approaches presented in this comprehensive work.