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International Conference on Design Science Research in Information Systems

DESRIST 2010: Global Perspectives on Design Science Research pp 490–505Cite as

Assessing Project Effort in Requirements Engineering: A Report on Design Research in Progress

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 6105))

Abstract

In this paper we report on our design research in progress, where we have developed an artifact that assesses project effort resulting from requirements. Based on models used in the goal-oriented requirements engineering method KAOS, the artifact measures system size via function point analysis and analyzes system complexity via structural analysis. In addition, we provide theoretical explanations and empirically validate how size and structural complexity affect project effort. Overall effort depends on counted functions that must be transformed, since software development can be regarded as a transformation process where size matters. Structural complexity matters as well, since software development is also a complex problem, where effort spent depends on the structure of the problem. Insights from empirical evaluation in three software development projects are encouraging, wherefore we believe that the artifact appropriately assesses project effort. Furthermore, our artifact increases the utility of KAOS by providing additional information on project effort.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chair of Business Administration, esp. E-Finance and Services Science, Goethe University Frankfurt, Grüneburgplatz 1, 60323, Frankfurt, Germany

    Frank Zickert & Roman Beck

Authors
  1. Frank Zickert
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  2. Roman Beck
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Information Management, University of St. Gallen, Müller-Friedberg-Strasse 8, 9000, St. Gallen, Switzerland

    Robert Winter

  2. Department of Information Systems, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China

    J. Leon Zhao

  3. Institut of Information Management, University of St. Gallen, Mueller-Friedberg-Strasse 8, 9000, St. Gallen, Switzerland

    Stephan Aier

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Zickert, F., Beck, R. (2010). Assessing Project Effort in Requirements Engineering: A Report on Design Research in Progress. In: Winter, R., Zhao, J.L., Aier, S. (eds) Global Perspectives on Design Science Research. DESRIST 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6105. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13335-0_34

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-13335-0_34

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-13334-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-13335-0

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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