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International Working Conference on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality

REFSQ 2015: Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality pp 81–97Cite as

Estimating the Implementation Risk of Requirements in Agile Software Development Projects with Traceability Metrics

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 9013))

Abstract

[Context and Motivation] Agile developments follow an iterative procedure with alternating requirements planning and implementation phases boxed into sprints. For every sprint, requirements from the product backlog are selected and appropriate test measures are chosen. [Question/problem] Both activities should carefully consider the implementation risk of each requirement. In favor of a successful project, risky requirements should either be deferred or extra test effort should be dedicated on them. Currently, estimating the implementation risk of requirements is mainly based on gut decisions. [Principal ideas/results] The complexity of the graph spanned by dependency and decomposition relations across requirements can be an indicator of implementation risk. In this paper, we propose three metrics to assess and quantify requirement relations. We conducted a study with five industry-scale agile projects and found that the proposed metrics are in fact suitable for estimating implementation risk of requirements. [Contribution] Our study of heterogeneous, industrial development projects delivers for the first time evidence that the complexity of a requirements traceability graph is correlated with the error-proneness of the implementing source code. The proposed traceability metrics provide an indicator for requirements’ implementation risks. This indicator supports product owners and developers in requirement prioritization and test measure selection.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software Systems Group, Technische Universität Ilmenau, Ilmenau, Germany

    Patrick Rempel & Patrick Mäder

Authors
  1. Patrick Rempel
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  2. Patrick Mäder
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Correspondence to Patrick Rempel .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Software Engineering Research Laboratory, Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden

    Samuel A. Fricker

  2. Software Engineering Group, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Kurt Schneider

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Rempel, P., Mäder, P. (2015). Estimating the Implementation Risk of Requirements in Agile Software Development Projects with Traceability Metrics. In: Fricker, S., Schneider, K. (eds) Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality. REFSQ 2015. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9013. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16101-3_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16101-3_6

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16100-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16101-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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