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

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

Thorsten von Ramsch is Director Engineering at QAULITEST Group. He is an IREB Certified Requirements Engineer, ISTQB Certified Tester Full Advanced Level, ASQF Project Manager, Professional Scrum Master and iNTCCM Certified Professional for Configuration Management. His focus is on the banking and insurance sector, which he advises in the areas of requirements elicitation, test management and test analysis.

• Classical requirements and test analysis a discontinued model?

Gil Regev has been a researcher at EPFL since 1997 in the fields of enterprise information systems, requirements engineering, change management and knowledge management. Since 2008 he is also manager and consultant at Itecor, a boutique consultancy firm. Previously Gil developed software for computer peripherals at Logitech, in Switzerland and California.

• A General Systems Thinking Perspective on the CPRE

Alain Wegmann is a full professor at the School of Computer and Communication Sciences, EPFL, Switzerland. He worked 14 years for Logitech (Switzerland, Taiwan, US) in positions ranging from software developer, IS manager, manufacturing engineering to VP of engineering and OEM marketing before joining the EPFL in 1997. His teaching, consulting and research are in the fields of enterprise architecture, requirements engineering and service engineering.

• A General Systems Thinking Perspective on the CPRE

Olivier Hayard has been a consultant and in charge of IT and Knowledge Management at Itecor, a boutique consultancy firm, since 1993. Olivier’s main interests are business analysis and requirements management, as practitioner, trainer and researcher.

• A General Systems Thinking Perspective on the CPRE

Gildas PREMEL-CABIC works as a Business Analyst at Capgemini (France). Gildas holds the IREB CPRE foundation level certificate. His business domain is the use of simulation for Defence activities. His main domain of interest concerns system modeling and simulation.

• Discovering System Requirements through SysML

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.

• Inputs to requirements engineering in agile projects

Nuno Ferreira is currently the head of research at i2S Insurance Knowledge, invited professor at ISEP of Porto's Polytechnique Institute and researcher at ALGORITMI research center of Minho’s University in Portugal. He holds a PhD in Software Engineering. He has a strong background in software engineering, project management and process management. His re-search interests are requirements elicitation, process-to-product transitions, logical architectures derivation, and process maturity models.

• Inputs to requirements engineering in agile projects

Ricardo J. Machado is a full professor of Information Systems Engineering and Technology in the Dept. of Information Systems at the University of Minho (UMinho), School of Engineering. Within the Information Systems Engineering domain, his primary research interests are in modelling and requirements for systems analysis and design and in process and project management life-cycles. He has supervised 50 completed PhD and MSc theses in these areas. He has published over 150 scientific publications and 4 industrial patents, and has acted as coordinator (PI) and senior researcher of over 50 R&D projects. Currently, at UMinho he is the vice-rector for institutional development, the director of the ALGORITMI Research Centre, the scientific coordinator of the EPMQ Laboratory at the CCG/ZGDV Institute, the director of the Doctoral Program in Advanced Engineering Systems for Industry, and member of the Board of the UM-Cities Platform.

• Inputs to requirements engineering in agile projects

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

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?

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

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

Grigory Grin is a Chief Software Architect at Axinom – software supplier for Media- and In-Flight Entertainment solutions based in Germany and Estonia.
Grigory studied mathematics and graduated from the Ural State University in Russia in 1995. During his 25 years career on the software development field, Grigory had responsibilities in a broad range of roles – Development, Architecture, Business Analysis, Project Management. His main strengths are in alignment between the customer needs and contractors technical capabilities and solution portfolio to deliver the highest business value.
As a practitioner, Grigory has successfully led multiple multi-million euro projects for world-known brands in the aerospace industry with significant challenges on the field of Requirements Engineering.

• When the rubber hits the road

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

Fabrício Laguna is the first CBAP © in Latin America (CBAP - Certified Professional in Business Analysis by IIBA © - International Institute of Business Analysis), also certified PMP Project Manager by PMI.

He holds a degree in Computer Science from USP, an MBA in Business Administration from FUNDACE (Foundation linked to FEA USP) and a degree in Entrepreneurship from the EMPRETEC program at SEBRAE.

He is currently President of the IIBA São Paulo Chapter, where he coordinated the translation project of Guia BABOK © into the Portuguese language. He was a reviewer of the 3rd version of this guide in partnership with specialists in Business Analysis from several countries.

He has experience in systems development and in the implementation of systems development methodologies in several companies, mainly in the financial market.
Parallel to his work in the IT area, he participated in several theater groups as an actor and playwright. The mixture of technical and communication skills has created a singular facility to act as an instructor in training and lectures, which has been recognized by all the places where it operates.

He has been teaching for more than 15 years, having undergraduate courses (Federal University of São Carlos), post-graduation (University of Marília, IBPI SP and RJ and Anhembi Morumbi), extension courses (USP and UNAERP), and more than 10,000 hours of training for professionals in several large companies.

• REQM guidance matrix

Dr. Michael Jastram is an expert model-based systems engineering (MBSE), with a focus on requirements. He has over 20 years experience in software development and requirements engineering, which he regularly shares as author and public speaker. Amongst other things, he publishes weekly updates on Systems Engineering Trends [German] and monthly updates on Requirements Engineering [English].

Michael is a leader in open source requirements management, being project lead of the Eclipse Requirements Modeling Framework. He is also a strong advocate of open standard and actively contributes to the OMG Requirements Interchange Format (ReqIF).

Today, he is founder and principal systems engineer of Formal Mind GmbH, a service provider in Open Systems Engineering.

You can connect digitally with Michael via his Blog [en] | Blog [de] | Twitter | LinkedIn | Xing.

• Modeling Requirements with Constraints

Andreas Kara has 15 years experience as IT project manager in leading positions, both representing customer and contractor. As a trainer, he helps his students to become successful project managers and to enjoy their profession. As a coach, he provides intense knowledge transfer on the job.

• Modeling Requirements with Constraints

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

Martin Tate is an IT consultant who has now personally run or rescued 52 projects to select off-the-shelf solutions, interviewed over 725 people to capture the requirements for selections and appraised over 1,000 candidate solutions. A ‘poacher turned gamekeeper’, he formerly worked for an IT provider and was trained to sell software. BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, made him a Chartered Fellow for eminence in evaluating software and recently published his book, a practitioner guide to procuring off-the-shelf IT.

• IT Requirements when Buying, not Making

Ariè Avnur is a veteran software developer, manager and executive, with over 40 years of experience developing software of various types, from real-time embedded and control systems through enterprise, web applications, to health IT systems. Ariè accompanied software engineering methodologies and requirements engineering since the 70’s, published papers and developed tools for the trade. Recently he was involved in the introduction and development of RE practice for Scrum projects in a major European healthcare company. Arie’s current interests include the application of RE and development methods for better software development, healthcare IT and Internet of Things platforms.

• A Finite State Machine Model for Requirements Engineering

Pascal Roques is a senior consultant and trainer who has been modeling for more than twenty five years in various domains. He began with SADT and OMT, then moved to UML (OCUP Advanced Certification) and RUP in Valtech, where he was in charge of the Modeling part of the training catalog. Pascal is now working on his own at PRFC [www.prfc.fr], mainly in the field of Systems Modeling with SysML. He is also co-founder of SysML France association, and published several books on UML and SysML in French.

• Modeling Requirements with SysML

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. Michael Jastram is an expert model-based systems engineering (MBSE), with a focus on requirements. He has over 20 years experience in software development and requirements engineering, which he regularly shares as author and public speaker. Amongst other things, he publishes weekly updates on Systems Engineering Trends [German] and monthly updates on Requirements Engineering [English].

Michael is a leader in open source requirements management, being project lead of the Eclipse Requirements Modeling Framework. He is also a strong advocate of open standard and actively contributes to the OMG Requirements Interchange Format (ReqIF).

Today, he is founder and principal systems engineer of Formal Mind GmbH, a service provider in Open Systems Engineering.

You can connect digitally with Michael via his Blog [en] | Blog [de] | Twitter | LinkedIn | Xing.

• What is a Useful Perspective in Considering Requirements Engineering Relative to Systems Engineering?
• Modeling Requirements with Constraints
• Open Up

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

Alexander Rachmann advises companies on the linking business and IT. His strong interdisciplinary knowledge of business administration and computer science enables him to work as an ideal Requirements Engineer, Business Analyst, or System Analyst. He has worked in industries such as e-commerce, healthcare, IT security, and software development. He holds a doctorate degree in economics, master's degrees in computer science and information science and a diploma in business computer science.

• Product Owner in Scrum

Jesko Schneider worked as a consultant with a focus on Business Analysis, Requirements Management and Usability Engineering. He built up consulting services for Requirements Engineering and Usability Engineering in an international consulting company. His industry focus lies on telecommunications. He is a well-known trainer for Certified Professional for Requirements Engineering from the IREB. In his role as Requirements Engineer, Business Analyst, System Analyst or Product Owner, he is always the linkage between business and IT. He holds a degree in media informatics.

• Product Owner in Scrum

Frank Engel looks back on over 10 years’ experience in project management and Requirements Engineering. Prior to his time as a Partner of the Anforderungsfabrik, he was responsible for an international consulting company as Unit Manager. Topic of his business unit was Requirements Engineering and Management. His role in projects is Product Owner, Project Manager and Requirements Engineer. He studied business information systems. Always linking business and IT!

• Product Owner in Scrum

Jens Schirpenbach has been working as a consultant in the area of Product Lifecycle management for more than 12 years focusing on operations transformation in the area of Engineering and Services. He worked as a solution architect and project manager for diverse projects, essentially in the automotive, aerospace and manufacturing industry. He managed a team for PLM at a major European consultancy. After eleven years in consulting he founded P&PM Solutions & Consulting.
He has a joint master degree in mechanical Engineering and business administration of the University of Darmstadt, Germany.

• Opportunities & Approaches

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