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Explicit Alignment of Requirements and Architecture in Agile Development

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Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ 2020)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNPSE,volume 12045))

Abstract

[Context & Motivation] Requirements and architectural components are designed concurrently, with the former guiding the latter, and the latter restricting the former. [Question/problem] Effective communication between requirements engineers and software architects is often experienced as problematic. [Principal ideas/results] We present the Requirements Engineering for Software Architecture (RE4SA) model with the intention to support the communication within the development team. In RE4SA, requirements are expressed as epic stories and user stories, which are linked to modules and features, respectively, as their architectural counterparts. Additionally, we provide metrics to measure the alignment between these concepts, and we also discuss how to use the model and the usefulness of the metrics by applying both to case studies. [Contribution] The RE4SA model employs widely adopted notations and allows for explicitly relating a system’s requirements and architectural components, while the metrics make it possible to measure the alignment between requirements and architecture.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Remmelt Blessinga, Abel Menkveld and Thijs Smudde for their contributions to an earlier version of this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information and Computing Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Sabine Molenaar, Tjerk Spijkman, Fabiano Dalpiaz & Sjaak Brinkkemper

  2. fizor., Soest, The Netherlands

    Tjerk Spijkman

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  1. Sabine Molenaar
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  2. Tjerk Spijkman
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  3. Fabiano Dalpiaz
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  4. Sjaak Brinkkemper
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sabine Molenaar .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Science, Middlesex College, Western University, London, ON, Canada

    Nazim Madhavji

  2. School of Computer Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Liliana Pasquale

  3. Area della Ricerca CNR di Pisa, Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell'Informazione “Alessandro Faedo”, Pisa, Italy

    Alessio Ferrari

  4. Area della Ricerca CNR di Pisa, Istituto di Scienza e Tecnologie dell'Informazione “Alessandro Faedo”, Pisa, Italy

    Stefania Gnesi

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Molenaar, S., Spijkman, T., Dalpiaz, F., Brinkkemper, S. (2020). Explicit Alignment of Requirements and Architecture in Agile Development. In: Madhavji, N., Pasquale, L., Ferrari, A., Gnesi, S. (eds) Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality. REFSQ 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12045. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44429-7_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44429-7_13

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