The role of requirements engineering (RoRE) is central for the implementation of projects in general and is especially crucial for business transformation projects (or simply projects) because transformation activities incur major changes in the existing sets of archaically defined requirements. Requirements engineering (RE) is a complex part of the project because it consists of many related communication, cross-functional knowledge, and dependencies, like the need for RE to interact with executive management, business users, business architects, implementation developers, and other project actors. In this chapter, the authors will try to propose an RoRE concept (RoREC) that can support project managers (or simply managers) in transforming the enterprise and managing RE activities. RE activities are not just about assembling a huge set of business and non-functional requests and features in the form of document(s) and delivering a repository of methodology-based diagram(s).
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This chapter’s background mixes RE, RoREP, HDT, DevOps4RE, Knowledge Management System for RE (KMS4RE), EA, ICS management, and transformation engineering fields (Ebert, Gallardo, Hernantes, & Serrano, 2016). Applying RoREP instances for the mapping of requirements to the company’s or organization’s (simply the Entity’s) strategic Decision-Making System for RE (DMS4RE) processes, is the main strategic goal for the transformed Entity, because DMS4RE integration is done right in the beginning of the Project and not at its end where teams try to find ad-hoc solutions (Trad, 2020).
As shown in Figure 1, the RoREC is the concept that supports the interaction between RE activities, RoREP instances, and KMS4RE/DMS4RE which supports problem solving. The RoREP is a cross-domain pattern that interacts with the HDT, which manages sets of Critical Success Factors (CSF) and Areas (CSA) that can be used by the Project and its SIP to solve problems (Uhl, & Gollenia, 2012). The Research and Development Project (RDP) uses adapted HDT and BDD approaches, where both approaches resemble to empirical basic reasoning, or what can be called a learning process, like Action Research (AR) or Machine Learning (ML). This chapter’s RDP for RE (RDP4RE), relies on various Project processes and components like, the DMS4RE, KMS4RE, and the RoREC (Trad & Kalpić, 2018a, 2018b). The RoREP is business driven and is agnostic to any specific business domain; and is founded on an avant-garde in-house framework that in turn is based on existing standards, like the Architecture Development Method for RE (ADM4RE) (The Open Group, 2011a, 2011b). Today, there are many methodologies, which can be used to develop Projects where the Project’s team can use RoREP instances to synchronize ADM4RE cycles. RoREC’s aim is to deliver recommendations for managing and aligning Project’s processes like, RE’s integration, ADM4RE and DevOps4RE with all other Project’s resources. The RDP4RE is based on Literature Review Process for RE (LRP4RE) and a Qualitative Analysis for RE (QLA4RE). As shown in Figure 2, RoREP instances interact and are used by various Project’s resources via an implemented DevOps4RE life management interface, which is used to synchronize and deploy versions of ICS components (CenturyLink, 2019).