Specifying and Reasoning about Contextual Preferences in the Goal-oriented Requirements Modelling
This work addresses the challenge of adapting software requirements to contextual changes for systems analysts, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing goal-oriented variability modelling.
The paper tackles the problem of varying stakeholder preferences in goal-oriented requirements engineering by proposing a contextual preference specification and automated reasoning approach, resulting in a method that supports analysts in evaluating alternative design solutions.
Goal-oriented requirements variability modelling has established the understanding for adaptability in the early stage of software development-the Requirements Engineering phase. Goal-oriented requirements variability modelling considers both the intentions, which are captured as goals in goal models, and the preferences of different stakeholders as the main sources of system behaviour variability. Most often, however, intentions and preferences vary according to contexts. In this paper, we propose an approach for a contextual preference-based requirements variability analysis in the goal-oriented Requirements Engineering. We introduce a quantitative contextual preference specification to express the varying preferences imposed over requirements that are represented in the goal model. Such contextual preferences are used as criteria to evaluate alternative solutions that satisfy the requirements variability problem. We utilise a state-of-the-art reasoning implementation from the Answer Set Programming domain to automate the derivation and evaluation of solutions that fulfill the goals and satisfy the contextual preferences. Our approach will support systems analysts in their decisions upon alternative design solutions that define subsequent system implementations.