Articles

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 1

Nuno Santos is currently a Senior Business Analyst at Natixis Portugal. He holds a PhD in Technologies and Information Systems, and is also certified from Agile Alliance as CSPO, and from the IIBA as CCBA, AAC and POA. He has also written articles about requirements, agility and product ownership at RE Magazine, BA Digest, Analyst Catalyst, Medium, and in several scientific conferences.

• Requirements Elicitation in Modern Product Discovery
• Inputs to requirements engineering in agile projects

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

Suzanne Robertson is having a stellar career in information technology and systems engineering. Suzanne is a pioneer in adapting ideas from other domains for automated solutions. She has collaborated in workshops using experts from fields as diverse as modern music, visualization, and cookery. Ideas from these domains were adapted to make major breakthroughs in creative ideas for domains ranging from air traffic control to local government. She is co-author of the best-selling Mastering the Requirements Process, among other books and courses. She is co-creator of the Volere requirements techniques. She was the founding editor of the Requirements Column in IEEE Software.

• Integrating Business Events into your Agile Framework
• How Will It Work?

As a principal and founder of The Atlantic Systems Guild, James Robertson is known for his work in implementing systems engineering principles that link business specialists with solution specialists. James is a consultant, lecturer, author, project leader whose area of concern is the requirements for software, and the contribution that good business analysis makes to successful projects. James is co-author of 5 books that have been influential in the business analysis world. His training as an architect has led to his work on good design principles and to his focus on how innovation can be integrated with business analysis.

• Integrating Business Events into your Agile Framework
• How Will It Work?

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

Rana Siadati is currently a PhD student in Software Requirements Engineering and also a visiting lecturer by the School of Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire. Alongside these roles, Rana has many years of academic and industrial experience, also at managerial level, gained in the UK and abroad.

• Learning from history: The case of Software Requirements Engineering

Paul Wernick is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire. Dr Wernick has taken leading roles in the ProSim series of software process simulation workshops, and the IEEE Workshop on Software Evolvability. Dr Wernick’s current research interests cover the high-level human environment within which software processes occur and their simulation, and computer security.

• Learning from history: The case of Software Requirements Engineering

Vito Veneziano is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire, and his interests range from software engineering, HCI, requirements analysis and system modelling, to how software systems impact on organisations. Previously Dr Veneziano worked in IT and project management, business application development, software design and consultancy.

• Learning from history: The case of Software Requirements Engineering

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

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

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

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

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

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

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