Research Preview: Supporting Requirements Feedback Flows in Iterative System Development

Paper in proceeding, 2015

Context & motivation: Today, embedded systems are increasingly interconnected and operate in a rich context of systems and internet-based services. Iterative development is one strategy of developing such cyber-physical systems. It enables exploration of early prototypes of a feature in the context of its intended use and collecting telemetric data from test-runs. This is a rich data source that can be leveraged for learning behavioural requirements for a feature. Question/problem: However, we found practitioners struggling with deriving requirements for the next iteration from such test-runs in a systematic and repeatable way. Principal ideas/results: We allow test drivers to add markers when the system behaves unexpectedly by introducing a dedicated feedback tool. Preliminary evaluation shows that these markers lead to better feedback to the development team and indicates a positive impact on the development cycle. Contribution: We give an example, report experiences, and discuss industrial implications of feedback systems and in situ requirements gathering in iterative system development.