Articles

Head of Requirements Engineering at ZIEHL-ABEGG, overseeing requirements for ventilation and drives technology since June 2024. Since 2015, I’ve worked as consultant and trainer for RE and SE in various industries from automotive, medical devices to insurance before joining a cyber security app manufacturer as Lead Requirements Engineer in 2023.

• Beyond Participation

Nastassia is a dedicated Senior IT Business Analyst with both technical and non-technical expertise in the FinTech, EdTech and E-Commerce domains. She holds a Master’s degree in Informatics and is certified by Scrum.org as PSPO I. Nastassia has participated in several scientific conferences related to Computer Science and IT Project Management.

• Integrating User-Centric Design in Business Analysis

Michael Mey, Managing Consultant at Obvious Works, holds a diploma in Computer Science from Furtwangen University, Germany, where he first explored AI and neural networks. With extensive experience in international software projects, particularly in the financial industry, Michael has held key roles at major corporations and launched a crypto startup through an incubation program, blending corporate and entrepreneurial insights. An Agile coach and trainer, he specializes in Requirements Engineering and AI integration. Michael is engaged in the IREB Special Interest Group AI and regularly speaks at conferences like REConf, REFSQ, and Scrum Day. As co-creator of the AIxRE Masterclass, he is dedicated to helping organizations optimize their processes by integrating AI into Requirements Engineering practices.

• AI Assistants in Requirements Engineering | Part 2
• AI Assistants in Requirements Engineering | Part 1

Michael Mey, Managing Consultant at Obvious Works, holds a diploma in Computer Science from Furtwangen University, Germany, where he first explored AI and neural networks. With extensive experience in international software projects, particularly in the financial industry, Michael has held key roles at major corporations and launched a crypto startup through an incubation program, blending corporate and entrepreneurial insights. An Agile coach and trainer, he specializes in Requirements Engineering and AI integration. Michael is engaged in the IREB Special Interest Group AI and regularly speaks at conferences like REConf, REFSQ, and Scrum Day. As co-creator of the AIxRE Masterclass, he is dedicated to helping organizations optimize their processes by integrating AI into Requirements Engineering practices.

• AI Assistants in Requirements Engineering | Part 2
• AI Assistants in Requirements Engineering | Part 1

Gareth is an experienced business analyst and product owner who has been working in the telecoms and other industries for longer than he’d like to be specific about. He has been an active member of IREB for some years and is a co-author and examiner within the RE@Agile working group. He lives and works in Germany having successfully escaped from a small, slightly uncooperative island.

• Splitting Requirements at Scale
• RE in Agile Projects: Survey Results
• RE in Agile Projects: a Survey
• How agile can Requirements Engineers really be?

Prof. Dr. Salinesi is an active academic who teaches topics in relation with software design such as Requirements Engineering, and Software Product Lines. He was involved in many funded research projects (FP4, FP5, H2020, ANR) and was the leader for collaborations and consultancy works for various companies such as France Télécom, SNCF, Renault, EDF or REXEL). He has been General Chair of SPLC, CAiSE, REFSQ international conferences, and was Organizing Chair of the 13th IEEE International Conference on Requirements Engineering.

At IREB, Prof Salinesi has acted for 2 mandates as Second Chair of the Executive Committee. He is now Full Member, member of the Editorial Board, and WG Member.

• Conversation with an Artificial Intelligence

Howard Podeswa is a thought leader in the intersection of agile and business analysis. For over twenty years, he has been helping large organizations optimize their analysis and planning practices for agile software development approaches. He has authored a number of books that have become staple references for practitioners, most recently: The Agile Guide to Business Analysis and Planning: From Strategic Plan to Continuous Value Delivery - How Product Owners and Business Analysts (BAs) maximize the value of the product developed by the team, by integrating BA competencies with agile methodologies (Addison-Wesley Professional; 1st edition, 2021). Other works include UML for the IT Business Analyst (2009), and The Business Analyst’s Handbook (2008).

At Noble Inc., he has provided agile and business analysis services to clients worldwide, including the International Standards Organization (ISO), Moody’s, the Mayo Clinic, TELUS, TD Bank, LabCorp, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Mawer Investment Management Ltd., Bell Nexia, and REI Coop. He is currently advising IIBA on its Nimble initiative.

To contact Howard for in-house and public training and coaching services, please email howardpodeswa@nobleinc.ca or find him on LinkedIn @howardpodeswa

• Why Your Agile Organization Needs a High-Performing Requirements Engineering Competency
• The Business Case for Agile Business Analysis
• Five Questions

For more than twenty years, Rainer Grau has accompanied companies on their way enterprise agility. He supports companies in their efforts to continuously develop and create sustainable value for customers and employees. For him, it is particularly exciting to find out which methods, techniques and approaches are suitable for scaling agility and building the right product and the right service for the customer. Business analysis and requirements engineering are two essential disciplines in this context, which also generate high value in an agile setup - even if perhaps lived completely differently compared to a classic project approach.

Rainer's background of experience in business agility is based on his consulting work with companies from various industries. Stages of his professional life include Distinguished Consultant and Partner at Zühlke Engineering, Head of Business Development at digitec Galaxus, responsible for courses at universities of applied sciences on the topic of agility, founder of the Swiss Agile Leaders Circle, founder of Denkplan Verein and active involvement in communities around agility, business analysis and requirements engineering.

If there is still time left, Rainer Grau likes to spend it with his family, doing sports, playing his guitar and reading novels.

• Mission Possible
• Innovation Arena

Luisa Mich is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Trento, Italy. Her research interests include requirements engineering, creativity and web strategies. She is an author of more than 150 papers.
 

• Interview with John Mylopoulos
• Requirements Elicitation (ReqElic) in My Company

David Gilbert has worked in various operational and strategic Digital Design roles since 2007. Previously, he completed his studies as Diploma Mediamanager at the Wiesbaden University of Applied Sciences.

Until 2015, he worked for various design agencies such as Scholz & Volkmer, Pixelpark, Mutabor or SinnerSchrader. The projects he has worked in have received over 25 international and national design awards. - Since 2015 he is working in the IT department of the Deutsche Bahn Group, where he holds the role of Chief Architect User Experience at the intersection of classic system-oriented and user-oriented software conception.

From 2011 - 2016, he was a lecturer in UX Design at the RheinMain University of Applied Sciences, and has published various contributions to the topics of strategic UX design and digital design.

In addition to his engagement within the "Digital Design" working group, he is chairing the Bitkom "Digital Design" working group as well as he is a member of the "Designforum Digital Experience" of the German Design Council.

• Mastering Business Requirements

Dirk Röder has been working in software engineering since 1992. At DB Systel GmbH, he has been chief software architect since 2007, taking care of the employees involved in IT conception.

Since 2010, he has played a leading role in setting up and further developing the internal training program for the conceptual design of software. He has been driving the integration of UX design and classic software engineering since 2015. He is currently working on the conversion of concept work to agile implementation and new production models such as DevOps.

• Mastering Business Requirements

Andreas Maier studied Computational Linguistics, Language Science and Technology and Philosophy at Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany. From November 2008 to April 2018, he worked as scientific assistant at Fraunhofer IESE, where he focused on the elicitation and the automatic analysis of user requirements provided in natural language. In May 2019, he finished his PhD in computer science, where he investigated difficulties in the identification and specification of hedonic quality in user requirements and developed possible solutions for the mitigation of these difficulties.

• ReqInspector

Simon Darting studied applied computer science with focus on communication at the University of Applied Sciences in Worms, Germany. Subsequent to his studies he started working as a researcher at Fraunhofer IESE in 2012, where he focused on requirements- and systems engineering within large-scale projects. In 2017 he completed his Master's degree in "Software Engineering for Embedded Systems" at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. Since December 2018, he has been employed at BASF SE in Advanced Business Analytics with a focus on predictive maintenance.

• ReqInspector

Priyank Arora is a Senior Business Analyst working in the digital IT space for 12+ years. He is a CBAP certified professional with a Core Credential in Business Analytics from Harvard Business School. He works on large scale digital transformation projects for the world’s leading travel group, where he helped to transition the requirement engineering processes from traditional to Agile working methodologies. He was also involved with a machine learning initiative within his organisation and is a data science enthusiast with an interest in applying analytical thinking and decision automation for business growth.

• Data Science – the expanding frontier for Business Analysts

Jason Hansen obtained a BS in Chemical Engineering from Michigan Tech. He left the work force in 2005 to focus on raising an adopted special needs daughter. In 2015, he decided to return to school and obtained his AAAS in Network Admin. He is working as a tutor at GRCC while pursuing a Master’s Degree in Computer Software Engineering at GVSU.

• Challenges in the elicitation and determination of precise requirements from animal stakeholders

Thijmen works as IT architect at Kommuninvest acting as technical lead for its digitalization initiative and growing CI/CD and Agile practice in the company. His work on the mini-QAW started in his role as researcher at ABB, where he worked on software architectures with colleagues around the globe. He authored publications at leading international software conferences, receiving two best paper awards. Thijmen graduated cum-laude in software engineering from VU University in the Netherlands and Malardalen University in Sweden.

• Discover Quality Requirements with the Mini-QAW

Michael Keeling is a software engineer at LendingHome and the author of Design It! From Programmer to Software Architect. In his career so far, he has worked on a variety of interesting software systems including IBM Watson, enterprise search applications, financial platforms, and Navy combat systems. Michael has a master’s degree in software engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the College of William and Mary. Contact him via Twitter @michaelkeeling or his website, https://www.neverletdown.net

• Discover Quality Requirements with the Mini-QAW

Will Chaparro is a software development manager in IBM’s Watson Group. He spent over 5 years designing and building complex enterprise search solutions as a managing consultant. Prior to IBM he spent 11 years as a software engineer. He has a BS in Computer Science from the University of Pittsburgh.

• Discover Quality Requirements with the Mini-QAW

Hans van Loenhoud MSc is a consultant and teacher at Taraxacum in the Netherlands. He has been working in software development for more than 35 years, starting as a Cobol programmer and later on specialized in test and quality management.
In this role, he has been teaching various ISTQB test courses and has been chair of TestNet, the Dutch association of professional software testers. In recent years, he joined IREB to build a bridge between software testing and requirements engineering. He gives various Business Analysis, Requirements Engineering and Software Testing trainings. Hans is also a lecturer at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences for these topics and participates in the IREB advanced level Elicitation working group.

• The goal is to solve the problem

Dr. Kim Lauenroth is Chief Requirements Engineer and leads a competence centre for requirements engineering at adesso AG.

He has over 10 years of experience in software and requirements engineering in different domains. He regularly speaks at internal conferences in the topic of RE. Within IREB, he is involved in the development of the advanced level module Elicitation & Consolidation.

Kim received his PhD in the field of requirements engineering from the University of Duisburg-Essen and studied computer science, business administration and psychology at the University of Dortmund.

• The goal is to solve the problem

Dr. Patrick Steiger, based in Switzerland, leads the requirements engineering activities of Infometis AG and is a part-time teacher at the MAS HCID (Human-Computer Interaction Design) which is provided as a cooperation of University of Basle and HSR Hochschule für Technik Rapperswil.
Since more than 20 years he works as a consultant in software engineering projects, focusing on requirements engineering. His PhD was on the topic of “Personal Risk Management”, which already at that time addressed problems and goals of individuals.

• The goal is to solve the problem

Harry M. Sneed has a Master’s Degree in Information Sciences from the University of Maryland, 1969. He has been working in the IT field since 1967 when he started as a FORTRAN programmer for the US Navy Department. He migrated to Germany in 1971 and worked first for the Federal University Administration and then for Siemens in the database area. In 1978 he set up the first commercial software test laboratory in Budapest. There he developed the first German requirements engineering tool SoftSpec in 1982. That tool was used to document the requirements in many large German organizations, including BMW, Bertelsmann, Thyssen Steel and the German Railways. That tool was used not only to collect and store the requirements on the mainframe, but also to check the completeness and consistency of the requirements, as well as to generate a system design.

At the end of the 1980’s Sneed moved over to the field of reverse and reengineering and became involved in projects throughout Europe. In 2009 he received the Stevens Award from the IEEE Computer Society for his pioneering achievements in that field. He conducts courses at two technical colleges and two universities. He has published over 400 technical articles and written 23 books on the subjects of software testing, maintenance, migration and measurement. His work in requirement engineering is mainly in connection with reverse engineering, change management and test, three areas in which he still works as freelance consultant.

• Tracing Change Requests

Dr.-Ing. Birgit Demuth has over 20 years experience as researcher and educator in software engineering.
Amongst other lectures, she teaches students in requirements engineering.

Her interests are how to apply model-based techniques in the continuous software life cycle.
In a large-scale software project course, she coaches students and student tutors to elicit and model (often real)
user requirements before they start to implement.

• Tracing Change Requests

Karol Frühauf is co-founder of INFOGEM AG in Switzerland, since 1987 consulting in the field of software project and quality management (http://www.infogem.ch). He worked 12 years for BBC Brown Boveri & Cie and helped since 1987 many companies to improve their processes and products. He co-authored two books and is a frequent speaker, tutor and teacher in the field of software engineering. His main interests are test and quality management and requirements engineering.
He initiated and directs the "Bridge Guard Art / Science Residence Centre" in Štúrovo, Slovakia (http://www.bridgeguard.org).

• Sharing My Doubts on the Focus of Requirements
• Sharing My Doubts on Goals and Requirements
• Sharing My Doubts on Shall / Should / Will etc.
• Sharing My Doubts on Acceptance Criteria

Joy Beatty is a VP at Seilevel, a professional services company whose mission is to define software that customers love to use. Joy implements new methodologies that improve the requirements process. Her team provides assessments, mentoring, training and consulting services for F1000 companies.

Joy is actively involved as a leader in the requirements community. She was a co-author of PMI’s Business Analysis for Practitioners: A Practice Guide, as well as being on the core team for the IIBA’s Business Analysis Body of Knowledge (BABOK) version 3. She is also a contributing author to “The Guide to Business Analysis” which “Includes the Standard for Business Analysis” by PMI. She co-authored Visual Models for Software Requirements with Anthony Chen and Software Requirements, 3rd Edition with Karl Wiegers.

• Making “agiLE” Work
• Project Value Delivered

Candase is a Product Manager at Seilevel. As a trainer and a practitioner, she helps ensure her clients’ software projects deliver the most return on investment, and helps define the problems their projects are trying to solve. She has provided training for business analysts in F300 companies, as well as assisting in the development of Seilevel training material. She also provided editorial contributions to both Visual Models for Software Requirements and Software Requirements, 3rd Edition.

• Making “agiLE” Work
• Project Value Delivered

Dipl.-Ing. Oliver Stypa is head of the consulting department at Gemini Business Solutions GmbH, Aachen (Germany).

As a Mechanical Engineer (Dipl.-Ing.) from RWTH Aachen University (Germany) and IREB-CPRE, Mr. Stypa focuses on RE in manufacturing industry sectors. Understanding both worlds of mechanical engineers and software developers he successfully combines advantages of software based Requirements Engineering methodology and conventional machine development processes to improve development projects in integrated industries.

• The Context-Canvas

Sebastian Schlaus, B.Sc. is a strategy and production management expert in the consulting department at Gemini Business Solutions GmbH, Aachen (Germany).

Mr. Schlaus is a Business Administrator and Mechanical Engineer (B.Sc.) from RWTH Aachen University (Germany) and IREB-CPRE. As such, he focuses on strategic and production management in the international industry and entrepreneurial contexts. His background in the fields of engineering, industrialization and management enriches the team’s diverse composition by ensuring lean processes.

• The Context-Canvas

Albert Tort is the Research&Innovation Solutions Lead in Sogeti Spain. During the last years, he has been working as Quality Assurance and Software Control & Testing specialist in several projects for customers in different sectors (banking, airlines, insurance, procurement, etc.). Furthermore, he has been the lead of research&innovation projects developed at Sogeti. He was the winner of the “Capgemini-Sogeti Testing Innovation Awards 2015” for the submission of the best individual entry "Recover: Reverse Modeling and Up-To-Date Evolution of Functional Requirements in Alignment with Tests. He is also a member of the SogetiLabs community.

Previously, he served as a professor and researcher at the Services and Information Systems Engineering Department of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya-Barcelona Tech. As a member of the Information Modeling and Processing (MPI) research group, he focused his research on conceptual modeling, software engineering methodologies, OMG standards, knowledge management, requirements engineering, service science, semantic web and software quality assurance. Currently, he is also the coordinator of the postgraduate degree in Software Quality Assurance of the School of Professional & Executive Development of the Technical University Of Catalunya (BarcelonaTech).

He obtained his Computer Science degree in 2008 and he received his M.Sc. in Computing in 2009. In 2012 he presented the PhD thesis “Testing and Test-Driven Development of Conceptual Schemas”. He is the author of several publications in software engineering journals and conferences.

• KCycle: Knowledge-Based & Agile Software Quality Assurance
• The Recover Approach

Bastian Tenbergen is an Assistant Professor for Computer Science at the State University of New York at Oswego. He has co-authored articles and contributed to several books in the area of Software Engineering. Bastian’s main research focus is on Model-Based Requirements Engineering, Context Analysis, and Safety of Embedded and Cyber-Physical Systems. He has many years of project and consulting experience and has worked closely with industry.

• Modeling Requirements and Context as a means for Automated Requirements Validation

Andreas Vogelsang is a post-doc researcher in the software & systems engineering group at the Technical University of Munich. He works on model-based requirements engineering and participated in several research collaborations with industrial partners especially from the automotive industry. His research published was published in relevant international conferences like RE, REFSQ, or ICSE.

• Modeling Requirements and Context as a means for Automated Requirements Validation

Thorsten Weyer is a research group leader at the University of Duisburg-Essen. He has been a member of organization committees, program committees and reviewer for scientific conferences and journals. Thorsten gives regular lectures at the University and is an experienced conference speaker. He has also held several leading positions in research projects and technology transfer projects. He is member of the IREB council and head of the IREB working group Requirements Modeling.

• Modeling Requirements and Context as a means for Automated Requirements Validation

Andreas Froese works as a research assistant in the working group Software Systems Engineering (Prof. Dr. Klaus Pohl) at the University of Duisburg-Essen. He worked in several research projects where he was able to expand his knowledge in the domain of Requirements Engineering for software-intensive Embedded Systems, as well as in those of model-based Context Analysis and context-based Quality Assurance.

• Modeling Requirements and Context as a means for Automated Requirements Validation

Jan Christoph Wehrstedt works as a mathematician at the Technology Field Automation & Control at Siemens Corporate Technology. Currently he is Senior Key Expert for Efficient Simulation Driven System Development. He is the project manager of several business (Siemens internal) and public funded projects dealing with the integration of simulation and modeling approaches towards a simulation based engineering of technical systems and plants and it’s embedding into PLM lifecycle and tools.

• Modeling Requirements and Context as a means for Automated Requirements Validation

Veronika Brandstetter is a mathematician in the Technology Field Automation & Control at Siemens Corporate Technology. She is developing methods for seamless engineering and improved operation of technical systems based on simulation. Recently, she focused on simulation based design for manufacturing technologies. She has been working in various Siemens internal research projects as well as in publicly funded projects also managing part of them in different groups within the Technology Field.

• Modeling Requirements and Context as a means for Automated Requirements Validation

Gunnar Harde is Principal Consultant at adesso SE. In conjunction with his clients, he is responsible for their requirements engineering in critical software development projects.
He has many years of experience as Product Owner and Chief Product Owner. With over 25 years' experience in software development and organizational consultancy, he offers in-depth expertise spanning a variety of sectors, including automotive, healthcare and market research.
Gunnar studied physics in Germany and New Zealand. He now lives in Hamburg.

• Managing the Invisible
• Agility and Obligation
• Agility and Obligation

Eduard C. Groen is engineering psychologist. His fascination with the rapid rise of man-machine interfaces and other changes that affect society inspires him to contribute with technologies that optimally make use of the potential that these developments bring. As Fraunhofer IESE operates at the intersection of science and industry, he is involved in a variety of projects, while leading the development of the “Crowd-based Requirements Engineering” approach.

• How Requirements Engineering can benefit from crowds

Matthias Koch studied computer science with a focus on software engineering. Since 2012, he is employed as engineer at Fraunhofer IESE and mainly addresses the topics of requirements engineering and business analysis. In this context, he was involved in research projects on the pre-project and requirements definition phase, case studies and product evaluations. In research as well as industry projects, he regularly acts as requirements responsible, conducts workshops with customers and provides consulting.

• How Requirements Engineering can benefit from crowds

Manon Penning has a broad background in the fields of IT and education. She is an educational specialist, requirements engineer, quality analyst and trainer currently employed by Improve Quality Services, a provider of consultancy and training. Via Improve Quality Services she has been working for several Dutch companies over the past few years.

• Biased Toddlers
• The Genius Toddler Challenge

Rodolphe Arthaud currently works as an expert consultant for Inspearit, particularly in the area of process improvement.
Early adopter of Object Oriented Analysis and OMT, he led the development of OMT-, SDL- and UML-based products, participated actively in the definition of SDL2000 (ITU), UML 1.4, and UML 2.0 (OMG).
He was involved in the deployment of Requirements Engineering for a whole aircraft program, and since then, in various other domains — industry, IT for banks or insurance companies…

• An “agile” lifecycle for requirements
• Is requirements engineering still needed in agile development approaches?

Rodolphe Arthaud currently works as an expert consultant for Inspearit, particularly in the area of process improvement.
Early adopter of Object Oriented Analysis and OMT, he led the development of OMT-, SDL- and UML-based products, participated actively in the definition of SDL2000 (ITU), UML 1.4, and UML 2.0 (OMG).
He was involved in the deployment of Requirements Engineering for a whole aircraft program, and since then, in various other domains — industry, IT for banks or insurance companies…

• An “agile” lifecycle for requirements
• Is requirements engineering still needed in agile development approaches?

Gunnar Harde is Principal Consultant at adesso SE. In conjunction with his clients, he is responsible for their requirements engineering in critical software development projects.
He has many years of experience as Product Owner and Chief Product Owner. With over 25 years' experience in software development and organizational consultancy, he offers in-depth expertise spanning a variety of sectors, including automotive, healthcare and market research.
Gunnar studied physics in Germany and New Zealand. He now lives in Hamburg.

• Managing the Invisible
• Agility and Obligation
• Agility and Obligation

Gunnar Harde is Principal Consultant at adesso SE. In conjunction with his clients, he is responsible for their requirements engineering in critical software development projects.
He has many years of experience as Product Owner and Chief Product Owner. With over 25 years' experience in software development and organizational consultancy, he offers in-depth expertise spanning a variety of sectors, including automotive, healthcare and market research.
Gunnar studied physics in Germany and New Zealand. He now lives in Hamburg.

• Managing the Invisible
• Agility and Obligation
• Agility and Obligation

Dr. Sebastian Adam received his Master of Science degree (“German Diplom”) in Computer Science from the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, Germany in 2005 and joined the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE), Kaiserslautern, Germany in the same year. Since then, he is working there as a consultant, project leader and researcher for requirements engineering (RE) and has been coordinating and managing several national and international research and industry projects in the area of RE. Since 2011, he is leading the requirements engineering team at Fraunhofer IESE. In 2012, he received his Doctor degree (Dr.-Ing.) from the Technical University of Kaiserslautern. His work expertise and specific interests lie in the integration of requirements engineering with business process management, in lean requirements engineering as well as automatic requirements engineering by social media and mining technologies. Contact him at Fraunhofer IESE, Fraunhofer-Platz 1, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany, sebastian.adam@iese.fraunhofer.de

• TORE

Norman Riegel is a Consultant, Project Manager and Researcher for Requirements Engineering at the Fraunhofer Institute for Experimental Software Engineering (IESE), Kaiserslautern, Germany. Je joined Fraunhofer IESE in 2007, after having received his diploma in business informatics with a focus on logistics and industrial management by the University of Mannheim, Germany. He has been consulting industrial companies in finance, insurance, logistics, medical, social media, public and other domains. He is conducting trainings, tutorials and lectures in requirements engineering. In his role as a researcher he is contributing to national and international research projects and is author of more than 20 peer reviewed publications. His research interests include lean requirements engineering, the integration of requirements engineering and business process management, prioritization and decision support. Contact him at Fraunhofer IESE, Fraunhofer-Platz 1, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany, norman.riegel@iese.fraunhofer.de

• TORE

Dr. Joerg Doerr is head of the Information Systems division at the Fraunhofer Institute Experimental Software Engineering (IESE) in Kaiserslautern, Germany. Before, he was head of the Requirements and Usability Engineering department. His work areas include all software engineering areas for informations systems, with a special focus on requirements engineering, especially non-functional requirements. He received his master of science and PhD in Computer Science from the University of Kaiserslautern, Germany.  He leads diverse Training, industrial Technology-transfer and Research projects. He is lecturer at the University of Kaiserslautern, author of more than 60 peer reviewed publications and member in many international and national program committees. 2013, he was Co-Chair of the REFSQ 2013 conference on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality.  He is member in the German computer science society. Contact him at Fraunhofer IESE, Fraunhofer-Platz 1, 67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany, joerg.doerr@iese.fraunhofer.de

• TORE

Harry M. Sneed has a Master’s Degree in Information Sciences from the University of Maryland, 1969. He has been working in the IT field since 1967 when he started as a FORTRAN programmer for the US Navy Department. He migrated to Germany in 1971 and worked first for the Federal University Administration and then for Siemens in the database area. In 1978 he set up the first commercial software test laboratory in Budapest. There he developed the first German requirements engineering tool SoftSpec in 1982. That tool was used to document the requirements in many large German organizations, including BMW, Bertelsmann, Thyssen Steel and the German Railways. That tool was used not only to collect and store the requirements on the mainframe, but also to check the completeness and consistency of the requirements, as well as to generate a system design.

At the end of the 1980’s Sneed moved over to the field of reverse and reengineering and became involved in projects throughout Europe. In 2009 he received the Stevens Award from the IEEE Computer Society for his pioneering achievements in that field. He conducts courses at two technical colleges and two universities. He has published over 400 technical articles and written 23 books on the subjects of software testing, maintenance, migration and measurement. His work in requirement engineering is mainly in connection with reverse engineering, change management and test, three areas in which he still works as freelance consultant.

• Tracing Change Requests
• Automated Quality Assurance

Cristina Palomares is a PhD student in the Software Engineering for Information Systems Research Group (GESSI) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). Her PhD thesis deals about the construction, use and evolution of software requirement patterns for the reuse of requirements knoledge.

She has published several papers and presented posters and demos in requirements engineering conferences like in IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE) and the International Working Conference on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ). She is the coordinator of developers of the PABRE System for supporting requirements reuse.

• What is the Relevance of Requirements Engineering Research to Practitioners?
• Requirements Reuse

Dr. Carme Quer is associate professor in the Service and Information System Engineering department (ESSI) at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). She is member of the Software Engineering for Information Systems Research Group (GESSI) at the UPC. Her main research lines are requirements engineering and software quality.

She has published several papers in requirements engineering conferences like in the IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE) and the International Working Conference on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (REFSQ). She was General Chair of the Workshop on Requirements Engineering (WER) held in 2008.

• What is the Relevance of Requirements Engineering Research to Practitioners?
• Requirements Reuse

Xavier Franch is Professor at the Universitat Politècnica de Barcelona (UPC-BarcelonaTech), Spain. He is Council Member and Full Member of the IREB association. He has published over 200 peer-reviewed papers in conferences and journals, many of them related to requirements engineering. He was Program Co-Chair of the RE’16 and REFSQ’11 conferences, and he belongs to the Editorial Board of the Requirements Engineering Journal (Springer) and Information Software and Technology (IST) journals, among others. He is coordinator of the Q-Rapids project and participates in the OpenReq project, both in the H2020 programme. He organizes workshops concerning requirements engineering for NLP4RE, CrowdRE, JIT-RE and others.

• What is the Relevance of Requirements Engineering Research to Practitioners?
• Requirements Reuse

Erik van Veenendaal (www.erikvanveenendaal.nl) is a leading international consultant and trainer, and a widely recognized expert in the area of software testing and quality management.

He is the founder of Improve Quality Services BV (www.improveqs.nl). He holds the EuroSTAR record, winning the best tutorial award three times! In 2007 he received the European Testing Excellence Award for his contribution to the testing profession over the years. He has been working as a test manager and consultant in various domains for more than 20 years. He has written numerous papers and a number of books, including “Practical Risk-Based Testing: The PRISMA Approach” and “ISTQB Foundations of Software Testing”. He is one of the core developers of the TMap testing methodology and a participant in working parties of the International Requirements Engineering Board (IREB). Erik is also a former part-time senior lecturer at the Eindhoven University of Technology, vice-president of the International Software Testing Qualifications Board (2005–2009) and currently board member of the TMMi Foundation.

You can follow Erik on twitter via @ErikvVeenendaal.

• RE for Testers

For more than twenty years, Rainer Grau has accompanied companies on their way enterprise agility. He supports companies in their efforts to continuously develop and create sustainable value for customers and employees. For him, it is particularly exciting to find out which methods, techniques and approaches are suitable for scaling agility and building the right product and the right service for the customer. Business analysis and requirements engineering are two essential disciplines in this context, which also generate high value in an agile setup - even if perhaps lived completely differently compared to a classic project approach.

Rainer's background of experience in business agility is based on his consulting work with companies from various industries. Stages of his professional life include Distinguished Consultant and Partner at Zühlke Engineering, Head of Business Development at digitec Galaxus, responsible for courses at universities of applied sciences on the topic of agility, founder of the Swiss Agile Leaders Circle, founder of Denkplan Verein and active involvement in communities around agility, business analysis and requirements engineering.

If there is still time left, Rainer Grau likes to spend it with his family, doing sports, playing his guitar and reading novels.

• Mission Possible
• Innovation Arena