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An Introduction to Requirements Knowledge

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Book cover Managing Requirements Knowledge

Abstract

Requirements represent a verbalisation of decision alternatives on the functionality and quality of a system. Engineering, planning, and implementing requirements are collaborative, problem-solving activities, where stakeholders consume and produce considerable amounts of knowledge. Managing requirements knowledge is about efficiently identifying, accessing, externalising, and sharing this knowledge by and to all stakeholders, including analysts, developers, and users. This chapter introduces five foundations of managing requirements knowledge, which are discussed in the book parts. First, identifying requirements knowledge aims at externalising tacit knowledge such as rationale or presuppositions. Second, representing requirements knowledge targets an efficient information access and artefact reuse within and between projects. Third, sharing requirements knowledge improves stakeholders’ collaboration and ensures that their experiences do not get lost. Fourth, reasoning about requirements and their interdependencies aims at detect inconsistencies and deriving new knowledge. Finally, intelligent tool support reduces the overhead to manage requirements knowledge.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Pete Sawyer, Smita S Ghaisas, Yang Li, and Zardosht Hodaie for their constructive reviews.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics/MOBIS, University of Hamburg, Vogt-Kölln-Str. 30, 22527, Hamburg, Germany

    W. Maalej

  2. Harman Becker Automotive Systems GmbH, Moosacher Str. 48, 80809, Munich, Germany

    A. K. Thurimella

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  1. W. Maalej
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  2. A. K. Thurimella
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Correspondence to W. Maalej .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Informatics / MOBIS, University of Hamburg, Vogt-Kölln-Str. 30, Hamburg, 22527, Germany

    Walid Maalej

  2. Harman Becker Automotive Systems GmbH, Moosacher Str. 48, Munich, 80809, Germany

    Anil Kumar Thurimella

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Maalej, W., Thurimella, A.K. (2013). An Introduction to Requirements Knowledge. In: Maalej, W., Thurimella, A. (eds) Managing Requirements Knowledge. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34419-0_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-34419-0_1

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