6 EC
Semester 1, period 1
5364REEN6Y
| Owner | Master Software Engineering |
| Coordinator | H.L. Dekkers |
| Part of | Master Software Engineering, year 1 |
Requirements methods and techniques will be discussed during the lectures. If feasible the whole student group will collaborate in one real life requirements project based on the method of contextual design. Next to specific RE literature we will also study literature from psychology, law, philosophy and cognitive science to get a better understanding of the subject. Finally students will design and do an experiment to show the inherent weakness of requirements best practices, like the use of prototyping for requirement validation. This will be done from the perspective of human factors.
D. Kahneman 'Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment'.
Lectures are to present and discuss different theories and provide overview. Cases are discussed to set the scene, understand issues, see how theory applies and demonstrate working and failing practices.
Lectures are in part setup as group dialogue aimed to make students think. Lecture notes provide a more structured discussion of what was treated in the lecture.
Every Monday students do a one hour workshop in which an elicitation practice is explained.
Requirements Engineering is about knowledge engineering and creating solutions. Literature focuses on fundamental topics like how our brain works and touches upon some solutions in our field. Another fundamental topic is what we can know and what truth entails. Students have two reading tests during the course. Good results exempts them from the exam.
There is a lot of focus on practicing soft skills to elicit information. Already on the first day students have to do a number of interviews with peers. Every week students are expected to consciously engage in elicitation. A number of these have to be recorded and self assessed. Students also need to experiment. Idea is that students really improve their soft skills and get a good understanding of their own ability (and short comings). Making them highly aware that their understanding is already constrained by their knowledge acquisition. Students need to report their work.
Students also work on a real life case. Here they go through some steps: setting the scene with stakeholders; problem validation; scenario exploration; design and validate. The work they individually do needs to be added to their practice report and students get an individual grade for their contribution, which is partly based on the quality of the work for the case as a group.
Students sit with a lecturer at least once a week to talk about the case. There are two individual feedback sessions throughout the course.
|
Activity |
Number of hours |
|
Self Study |
109 |
|
Lectures |
14 |
|
Tutorials |
6 |
|
Feedback sessions |
9 |
|
Group work |
30 |
|
|
Requirements concerning attendance (TER-B).
| Item and weight | Details |
|
Final grade | |
|
0.25 (25%) Tentamen | |
|
0.3 (30%) Practice report | |
|
0.15 (15%) Literature Study | |
|
0.3 (30%) Reading tests |
Contact the course coordinator to make an appointment for inspection.
Individual: Practice with requirements engineering: elicitation, sense making, design, refutation, stakeholder management
Individual: a deep dive into academic literature about a topic of interest
Individual: acquire fundamental knowledge
Group: Do the requirements engineering for a real case
The 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' applies to this course. This will be monitored carefully. Upon suspicion of fraud or plagiarism the Examinations Board of the programme will be informed. For the 'Regulations governing fraud and plagiarism for UvA students' see: www.student.uva.nl
| Weeknummer | Onderwerpen | Studiestof |
| 1 | case selection, practice interviews, mandatory reading |
Software Requirements and Specifications: A Lexicon of Practice, Principles and Prejudices - Introduction by Michael_Jackson |
| 2 | Stakeholder interview, create productive atmosphere for the elicitation, mandatory reading | Apprenticing with the customer, Authors: Hugh R. Beyer, Karen Holtzblatt Sutcliffe and P. Sawyer, "Requirements elicitation: Towards the unknown unknowns," Cognitive Neuroscience, Gazzaniga, Sections 9.1, 9.3 and 9.6 about how memory works and what determines the reliability of memory. 17 pages Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Kahneman, chapters 3 - 7, 60 pages |
| 3 | Case work (mapping the territory, acquiring data, problem validation), mandatory reading |
Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Kahneman, chapters 8, 9 and 10, 43 pages Study one of these sources about listening and actively experiment with it: - Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, What Great Listeners Actually Do, HBR 14 July 2016. - Check https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent Communication, also the references to related work. - Preparing medical students to become attentive listeners, Dr J. Donald Boudreau, Eric Cassell & Abraham Fuks - https://www.ted.com/talks/julian_treasure_5_ways_to_listen_better |
| 4 | Case work (scenario development), mandatory reading |
Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Kahneman, chapters 11 - 17, 84 pages Decision Making and Sensemaking, Boland. See also these videos:
|
| 5 | Case work, Mandatory reading |
Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment by Kahneman, chapters 18 - 25, 104 pages |
| 6 | Case Work, Literature study | |
| 7 | Case Work, Literature study | |
| 8 | Present case, Literature study, wrap up practice report |
Recommended prior knowledge: Knowledge of requirement engineering, for example books of Sommerville, Robertson, van Lamsweerde, Wiegers or Pohl. 'Modeling techniques', e.g. UML diagrams to describe software behaviour.