Half Day Tutorial - May 14th

10 - Using Engineering Principles to Resolve Requirements Conflicts

Presenter

Anthony Hall of Praxis Critical Systems Ltd.

Introduction

Requirements Engineering is the keystone of systems engineering. We all know that failing to get the requirements right is the biggest cause of systems failure. But what is “right”? We also know that different stakeholders have different and conflicting requirements. How can we deal with these conflicts and find a consistent set of requirements?

At first sight this is purely a human, not a technological, problem. However, there is a scientific dimension to this, as to all other aspects of requirements engineering. In recent years, the underlying scientific basis for requirements engineering has been elucidated, largely by the work of Michael Jackson. This scientific basis has been developed by Praxis Critical Systems into a fully-fledged requirements engineering process, REVEAL. REVEAL covers all aspects of requirements elicitation, analysis and management; it includes a systematic and scientific approach to the resolution of conflicts.

Objectives

This tutorial introduces the underlying scientific basis of requirements engineering and shows how it can be used to understand, classify and resolve conflicts. The tutorial consists of lectures, exercises and a practical role-playing session in which participants put the ideas into practice on a small but realistic problem.

Background

This tutorial is based on the REVEAL training course which is available from Praxis Critical Systems Ltd (see http://www.praxis-cs.co.uk)

Target Audience

The tutorial is aimed at engineers and managers responsible for requirements development and management.

What will be learnt?

After attending the tutorial participants should:

• understand the nature of user requirements and system specifications;

• understand where conflicts can arise;

• be able to classify conflicts and choose appropriate resolution strategies for different kinds of conflict;

• understand the different successful outcomes of conflict resolution and how to achieve them.

Duration

The tutorial lasts one half day.

Schedule

1. Concepts

2. Worked example and exercises

3. Conflict Resolution

4. Conflict Resolution role play

Biography

Anthony Hall is a Principal Consultant with Praxis Critical Systems Ltd. He is a specialist in  requirements and specification methods and the development of software-intensive systems.

Anthony has worked for many years on the development of critical operational systems. During this time he has pioneered the application of formal methods to industrial practice. For example from 1989-92 he was the chief designer of CDIS, a display and information system for air traffic controllers which is currently operational at the London Area and Terminal Control Centre. CDIS is one of the largest systems ever developed using formal methods and is a highly reliable and successful system.

Anthony has carried out requirements engineering for many projects in areas including aviation, railway signalling, secure systems and communications. He has also been closely involved in academic and professional developments in requirements engineering. Together with colleagues in Praxis Critical Systems he has brought together extensive practical experience and the latest research findings to develop REVEAL, a principled yet practical approach to requirements engineering.

As well as carrying out projects and consulting for clients, Anthony teaches and lectures widely. He has been a keynote speaker at the International Conference on Software Engineering, at the IEEE conference on Requirements Engineering and other conferences. He has published several papers on formal methods.

Number of Participants

Maximum 20.

Additional Information

Full course notes are provided.

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