Difference between revisions of "RMF/Teaching"

Revision as of 08:15, 21 July 2014

Requirements Management and Engineering (RE&M) is taught, both in industry and academia. The availability of open source RE-tools, and the RMF-based (fmStudio)[1] in particular, created some interest for using those tools for teaching.

During the initial discussions, two things became clear:

• RM&E cannot be taught without taking the wider systems engineering (SE) context into account. In other words, RM&E must be considered a subdiscipline of SE, and must be treated that way.

• A tool must follow the process/methodology, not the other way around. Therefore, the foundation for this effort must be a solid, leightweight SE develpment process that is appropriate for teaching and relevant in practice.

Vision (tentative)

Create (1) a set of teaching materials that is actively used; (2) which is embedded in a larger SE context; and (3) which explicitly focuses on application, not on theory.

Objectives

• Collaboration of Industry, Service Providers and Academia: These three groups can benefit vastly from each other: Industry relies on academia for skilled labor, while service provider deliver expertise to industry in the form of knowledge (consultants) and tools (vendors).
• Standardization of basic RE (or SE) skills: Preparation of students with a basic set of skills that is relevant in industry, so employers know what to expect.
• Teaching Materials: Ideally, one outcome of this effort is a set of adaptable teaching materials.

Ideas

• Examples, Exercises, etc. (Herrmann) (Beispiel-Lastenhefte für die Lehre, Übungen und Musterlösungen.)
• Create a mind map, to understand the problem we're trying to solve (Daniel Gross)
• use REQB-Syllabus as a starting point

Join the Discussion

This discussion was initiated via email - a bad place to keep a conversation going. For the time being, we will start a new discussion thread on LinkedIn.

Open Questions

What is the Scope?

Systems Engineering or Requirements Engineering? A number of participants pointed out that RE as a stand-alone discipline is losing importance in favor of Systems Engineering, of which RE is a sub-discipline. Therefore, at a minimum we should look into RE in the context of overall SE.

Next, the scope is clearly operational, not theoretical. The theory (methodology, process), should be given and can maybe be covered elsewhere.

What is the means?

What can we produce that provides value for this group? Suggestions include:

• Templates (process-specific, for specific tools)
• Case Studies (with artifacts for specific tols)
• Tutorials (process-specific step-by-step instructions, for specific tools)
• Slides (for teaching)
• Reference Materials (e.g. tool-specific adaptation of a process)
• Project (high level description of a goal with instructions on how to realize it)

What process/methodology would be suitable?

Before answering this question, we need to understand the scope. We should look for a slim-lightweight process for MBSE and focus on the RE-part of it.

Suggestion regarding the process: To use the ISO/IEC 29110 Systems and Software Life Cycle Profiles and Guidelines for Very Small Entities (VSEs). The standard is accompanied by a set of Deployment Packages (DP) that, taken together, structure a complete software or system lifecycle process package. The DPs provide an "out-of-the-box" process for those VSEs that cannot afford the time, the effort or the resources to attack the "Big League" standards like ISO/IEC/IEEE 12207 or 15288 and the CMMi. Once all DPs have been covered, a basis for a complete VSE software or systems engineering certification program is assembled. To start, the Systems Engineering Requirement Engineering (RE) DP can be made available in Draft version and should be released sometimes in 2014 (as of July 2014). The DP provides a set of basic attributes to capture and manage requirements and to establish traceability links.

Suggestion regarding the Sample Project: Every training course needs a sample project to work out. For this Systems Engineering training curriculum, it is suggested to use the INCOSE Tool Vendor Disaster Relief Challenge.

What pre-requisites do we expect from anyone taking this training?

Before setting out to design and develop a training, we need to know what type of background students will bring in to the training session. I would propose the following:

• the students have read the ISO 29110 Systems and Software Life Cycle Profiles and Guidelines for Very Small Entities (VSEs);
• the students are familiar with the Eclipse environment and they have installed:

1) the Eclipse development toolset; 2) the Eclipse Requirements Management framework (RMF); 3) the FormalMind Studio application (which would include both the RMF and ProR).

• the students have little or no formal training or experience in Requirements Engineering.

Questions/Issues:

• Do students need to understand basics concepts of Change Management, sufficient to go through the creation, analysis, review and implementation of a Requirement Change Request?

Interested Parties

• Formal Mind GmbH (Michael Jastram)
• Herrmann & Ehrlich (Andrea Herrmann)
• REArch Int. (Dusko Jovanovic)
• Daniel Gross
• Paul Jorgensen (University in Michigan)
• Ronald (Ron) Houde (LinkedIn Profile Page)

Backlog

Contact / Initiator

Michael Jastram