Abstract
One advantage of using the agent paradigm for software engineering is that the concepts used for high-level modelling, such as roles, goals, organisations, and interactions, are accessible to many different stakeholders. Existing research demonstrates that including the stakeholders in the modelling of systems for as long as possible improves the quality of the development and final system because inconsistencies and incorrect behaviour are more likely to be detected early in the development process. In this paper, we propose three changes to the typical requirements engineering process found in AOSE methodologies, with the aim of including stakeholders over the requirements engineering process, effectively using stakeholders as modellers. These changes are: withholding design commitment, delaying the definition of the system boundary, and delaying the stakeholder “sign-off” of the requirements specification. We discuss our application of these changes to a project with an industry partner, and present anecdotal evidence to suggest that these changes can be effective in maintaining stakeholder involvement.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Belecheanu, R.A., Munroe, S., Luck, M., Payne, T., Miller, T., McBurney, P., Pěchouček, M.: Commercial applications of agents: Lessons, experiences and challenges. In: Proceedings of the Fifth International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, pp. 1555–1561. ACM Press, New York (2006)
Berry, D., Kamsties, E., Krieger, M.: From contract drafting to software specification: Linguistic sources of ambiguity - a handbook version 1.0 (2000)
Bresciani, P., Perini, A., Giorgini, P., Giunchiglia, F., Mylopoulos, J.: Tropos: An Agent-Oriented Software Development Methodology. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems 8(3), 203–236 (2004)
Button, G., Sharrock, W.: Occasioned practices in the work of software engineers. In: Jirotka, M., Goguen, J. (eds.) Requirements Engineering: Social and Technical Issues, pp. 217–240. Academic Press, London (1994)
Cheng, B., Atlee, J.M.: Research directions in requirements engineering. In: Briand, L., Wolf, A. (eds.) Proceedings of the International Conference on Software Engineering, pp. 285–303 (2007)
Dardenne, A., Lamsweerde, A., Fickas, S.: Goal-directed requirements acquisition. Science of Computer Programming 20(1-2), 3–50 (1993)
Easterbrook, S., Nuseibeh, B.: Using viewpoints for inconsistency management. Software Engineering Journal 11(1), 31–43 (1995)
Ferber, J., Gutknecht, O., Jonker, C.M., Müller, J.P., Treur, J.: Organization models and behavioural requirements specification for multi-agent systems. In: Demazeau, Y., Garijo, F. (eds.) Proceedings of the 10th European Workshop on Modelling Autonomous Agents in a Multi-Agent World, Multi-Agent System Organisations, pp. 1–19 (2001)
Garcia, A., Medinilla, N.: The ambiguity criterion in software design. In: International Workshop on Living with Uncertainties. ACM, New York (2007)
Gause, D.: User driven design – the luxury that has become a necessity, a workshop in full life-cycle requirements management. In: ICRE 2000, Tutorial T7 (2000)
Gause, D., Weinberg, G.: Exploring Requirements: Quality Before Design. Dorset House Publishing Co., Inc., New York (1989)
Guizzardi, R., Perini, A.: Analyzing requirements of knowledge management systems with the support of agent organizations. Journal of the Brazilian Computer Society (JBCS)-Special Issue on Agents Organizations 11(1), 51–62 (2005)
Juan, T., Pearce, A., Sterling, L.: ROADMAP: Extending the Gaia methodology for complex open systems. In: Proceedings of the First Int. Conf. on Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, pp. 3–10. ACM Press, New York (2002)
Jureta, I., Faulkner, S.: Clarifying goal models. In: Grundy, J., Hartmann, S., Laender, A., Maciaszek, L., Roddick, J. (eds.) ER (Tutorials, Posters, Panels & Industrial Contributions). CRPIT, vol. 83, pp. 139–144 (2007)
Kamsties, E., Berry, D., Paech, B.: Detecting ambiguities in requirements documents using inspections. In: Proceedings of the First Workshop on Inspection in Software Engineering (WISE 2001), pp. 68–80 (2001)
MacLean, A., Bellotti, V., Young, R.M.: What rationale is there in design? In: Diaper, D., Gilmore, D.J., Cockton, G., Shackel, B. (eds.) Proceedings of the 3rd Int. Conf. on Human-Computer Interaction, pp. 207–212 (1990)
Maiden, N., Jones, S., Manning, S., Greenwood, J., Renou, L.: Model-driven requirements engineering: Synchronising models in an air traffic management case study. In: Persson, A., Stirna, J. (eds.) CAISE 2004. LNCS, vol. 3084, pp. 368–383. Springer, Heidelberg (2004)
Munroe, S., Miller, T., Belecheanu, R., Pěchouček, M., McBurney, P., Luck, M.: Crossing the agent technology chasm: Lessons, experiences and challenges in commercial applications of agents. Knowledge Engineering Review 21(4), 345–392 (2006)
Paay, J., Sterling, L., Vetere, F., Howard, S., Boettcher, A.: Engineering the social: The role of shared artifacts. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies 67(5), 437–454 (2009)
Padgham, L., Winikoff, M.: Developing Intelligent Agent Systems: A practical guide. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester (2004)
Pavón, J., Gómez-Sanz, J.: Agent oriented software engineering with INGENIAS. In: Mařík, V., Müller, J.P., Pěchouček, M. (eds.) CEEMAS 2003. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 2691, p. 394. Springer, Heidelberg (2003)
Randall, D., Hughes, J., Shapir, D.: Steps toward a partnership: ethnography and system design. In: Jirotka, M., Goguen, J. (eds.) Requirements Engineering: Social and Technical Issues, pp. 241–254. Academic Press, London (1994)
Sterling, L., Taveter, K.: The Art of Agent-Oriented Modelling. MIT Press, Cambridge (2009)
Tjong, S.F., Hartley, M., Berry, D.: Extended disambiguation rules for requirements specifications. In: Alves, C., Werneck, V., Marcio Cysneiros, L. (eds.) Proceedings of Workshop in Requirements Engineering, pp. 97–106 (2007)
Van Lamsweerde, A., Darimont, R., Massonet, P.: Goal-directed elaboration of requirements for a meeting scheduler: problems and lessons learnt. In: Proceedings of the Second IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering, pp. 194–203. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (1995)
Wiegers, K.E.: Software requirements, 2nd edn. Microsoft Press, Redmond (2003)
Yu, E.: Modeling organizations for information systems requirements engineering. In: Proceedings First IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering, pp. 34–41. IEEE, Los Alamitos (1993)
Yu, E.: Towards modelling and reasoning support for early-phase requirements engineering. In: Proceedings of the 3rd IEEE International Symposium on Requirements Engineering (RE 1997), p. 226. IEEE Computer Society, Los Alamitos (1997)
Yu, E.: Agent-oriented modelling: software versus the world. In: Wooldridge, M.J., Weiß, G., Ciancarini, P. (eds.) AOSE 2001. LNCS, vol. 2222, pp. 206–225. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)
Zambonelli, F., Jennings, N.R., Wooldridge, M.: Developing multiagent systems: The Gaia methodology. ACM Transactions on Software Engineering Methodology 12(3), 317–370 (2003)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Miller, T., Pedell, S., Sterling, L., Lu, B. (2011). Engaging Stakeholders with Agent-Oriented Requirements Modelling. In: Weyns, D., Gleizes, MP. (eds) Agent-Oriented Software Engineering XI. AOSE 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 6788. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22636-6_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-22636-6_4
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-22635-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-22636-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)