Articles

At work, I connect business and IT using a variety of experiences and knowledge gained in different areas of activity – from testing, through analysis and requirements engineering, to process management.
Outside of my professional career, I am involved in a number of non-profit activities aimed at improving software development methods and I am an active member of several organizations acting to increase knowledge and maturity of requirements engineering and QA community.
Between 2011 and 2013 I was an active member of REQB® Board. Today, I continue work on RE standardization in IREB®. I am one of the main authors of IQBBA® certification scheme for business analysts and co-author of ISTQB® Acceptance Testing certification program.
From March 2018 to May 2020 I was president of Polish Testing Board (SJSI). Since March 2018 I am a member of the Executive Board at IREB®.

• The importance of active listening in the role of a Business Analyst

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

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

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

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

Till-J. Faßold is Expert Strategic Planning at 1&1, Germany. In this role – besides other responsibilities – he coaches professionals from various departments and is responsible for the requirements engineering processes. Till-J. Faßold hold a master’s degree in information management from the University of Koblenz and is certified to the IREB CPRE Expert Level.

• Requirements Engineering and Domain Knowledge

Freelance trainer and consultant in Software Engineering. 20 years of work experience, including 7 years as consultant and project manager, 10 years in research and university teaching, and two guest professorships. Associate member at IREB, co-author of syllabus and handbook for the CPRE Advanced Level in Requirements Management. www.herrmann-ehrlich.de

• Requirements Engineering in Job Offers

Maya Daneva, PhD, is Senior Member of Scientific Staff in the Services and Cybersecurity group at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. Her research interests are requirements engineering for large systems, security requirements engineering, requirements-based project estimation, user feedback analytics, and empirical research methods. Maya has a strong international exposure having spent two years of her career in Germany at the University of Saarbruecken and in the IDS Scheer, and 9 years as a business process analyst for SAP Enterprise Recourse Planning projects at TELUS Corporation, Canada’s second largest telecommunication company.

• Requirements Engineering in Job Offers

Chong Wang is an assistant professor at Wuhan University. She has over 10 years of work experience in research and university teaching. Her research interests include requirements engineering, software engineering, and service computing.

• Requirements Engineering in Job Offers

Nelly Condori-Fernandez is an assistant professor at the Universidade da Coruna (Spain) and research associate of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands). Her research focuses on topics related to quality requirements prioritization and sustainability. She has published 85 articles in indexed journals and ranked conferences. Besides, she has been involved in several European projects.

• Requirements Engineering in Job Offers

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?

Daniel Méndez is an Associate Professor for Software Engineering at the Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden and Senior Scientist at fortiss, the research institute of the Free State of Bavaria for software-intensive systems and services. His research is on Empirical Software Engineering with a particular focus on interdisciplinary, qualitative research in Requirements Engineering and its quality improvement. He regularly publishes in various software engineering publications and has occupied several key positions in venues of the empirical software engineering community. He is a member of the ACM, the IEEE Computer Society, and the German association of university professors and lecturers, and he serves as the representative to ISERN, the International Empirical Software Engineering Research Network. Further information is provided at www.mendezfe.org.

• What is the Relevance of Requirements Engineering Research to Practitioners?
• Modeling Requirements and Context as a means for Automated Requirements Validation

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?
• 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.

• What is the Relevance of Requirements Engineering Research to Practitioners?
• Modeling Requirements and Context as a means for Automated Requirements Validation

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

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

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

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

Guilherme Siqueira Simões works on FATTO Software Consulting (www.fattocs.com). He is author of a book on Function Points and of another book on Requirements Engineering, and has trained thousands of people from Latin America on these subjects. He has more than 20 years of experience on software projects. He is graduated on computer science and business management. He is a certified professional on function points by IFPUG and COSMIC, requirements engineering by IREB and PMP by PMI.

• Functional Requirements and their levels of granularity

He has been a function point analysis user since 1991, instructor since 1993, certified function points specialists (CFPS) by IFPUG since 1996 and by COSMIC since 2012. In both certifications, was among the first Brazilians to hold them. In 2001, co-authored the book “APF: Medição, Estimativas e Gerenciamento de Projetos de Software”, currently in its 13th edition, with over 13,000 copies sold and the main reference book on the subject in Brazil. In 2016 coauthored the book "RE: Software Orientado ao Negocio” and became a certified professional for requirements engineering – foundation level – by the IREB.

• Functional Requirements and their levels of granularity

After studying physics in Germany and New Zealand, Gunnar Harde worked as software engineer, later as IT consultant and project manager for IT and business consultancies and research institutes. Since 2007 he is responsible for the development of several IT systems of the Group Quality Assurance at Volkswagen and shapes the cooperation between IT and business department strategically and methodically. Harde is Certified Scrum Product Owner and expert in agile management.

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

Dr. Christine Grimm works for SAP as Senior Researcher in large scale, publicly funded projects. Formerly, she has been employed as a consultant implementing Enterprise Resource Planning Systems in Europe.
She holds a Master of Science in Management as well as a PhD in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies from the University of Edinburgh. She lives with her family in Zürich.

• Requirements Engineering in Research Projects: Food for Thought

Onur Görkem Özcan is a young professional with multidisciplinary background in management and engineering. He currently works as Project Manager at Credit Suisse, based in Zürich. He holds a BSc in Electronics Engineering from Sabanci University and MSc in Management, Technology and Economics from ETH Zürich. During his masters studies he worked at SAP Research as an intern and thesis student, researching requirements engineering practices in research projects.

• Requirements Engineering in Research Projects: Food for Thought

Deepti works at the RnD Department of Siemens Corporate Technology, Bangalore. Her responsibilities include RE consulting, applied RE research, and delivering in-house RE and Scrum Trainings. Her research interests include handling requirements in agile development, and requirements visualization. Deepti has a Masters in Software Engineering from the University of Melbourne, and is an IREB-CPRE. She still enjoys writing neat, unambiguous requirements specifications in structured templates and striving to get stakeholders to read them.

• Survival Kit for the RE Guy

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

Christoph Wolf works for more than 15 years as Requirements Engineer, Business Analyst, Project Manager and Quality Assurance Manager. He has built up a Business Analysis team and led it for several years. Since last year, he is consultant at SwissQ and supports clients in requirements engineering and quality assurance with focus on delivering business value. 

• The Business Analysis Center of Excellence

Stefan Meier is passionate about exploring and experimenting with new Requirements Engineering practices and methodologies. He many years of practical experience as Project Manager, Requirements Engineer  and Agile Coach. He loves talking to different stakeholders and sharpening their ideas and visions to get a crisp and clear understanding of their needs and values. 
He works at SPF Consulting and currently helps customers switching their requirements frameworks from waterfall processes towards agile approaches like Scrum. Additionally he is an conversant trainer for IREB CPRE FL, Visual Facilitation and Agile Requirements.

• Applying IREB RE practices in an agile environment

After studying physics in Germany and New Zealand, Gunnar Harde worked as software engineer, later as IT consultant and project manager for IT and business consultancies and research institutes. Since 2007 he is responsible for the development of several IT systems of the Group Quality Assurance at Volkswagen and shapes the cooperation between IT and business department strategically and methodically. Harde is Certified Scrum Product Owner and expert in agile management.

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

After studying physics in Germany and New Zealand, Gunnar Harde worked as software engineer, later as IT consultant and project manager for IT and business consultancies and research institutes. Since 2007 he is responsible for the development of several IT systems of the Group Quality Assurance at Volkswagen and shapes the cooperation between IT and business department strategically and methodically. Harde is Certified Scrum Product Owner and expert in agile management.

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

Johan Zandhuis is Product manager at SYSQA BV, an organisation specialised in quality assurance in IT. The themes ‘creating value with IT’ and ‘getting grip on IT’ play a constant role when he’s doing the job. “Why are we doing this” is a question he likes to ask. Besides other publications Johan is co-author of the Dutch book ‘Grip op requirements’ based on the IREB syllabus. Also he is one of the initiators for the Dutch translation of the IREB-dictionary and the IREB foundation syllabus. Contact: jzandhuis@sysqa.nl

• Poor requirements?

Dr. Christof Ebert is managing director at Vector Consulting Services. He supports clients around the world to improve product strategy and product development and to manage organizational changes. A trusted advisor for companies around the world, member of industry boards, he lectures at the Universities of Stuttgart and at the Sorbonne in Paris. He authored several books including the popular “Systematic Requirements Engineering”. Contact him at christof.ebert@vector.com

• Cyber Security Requirements Engineering
• Product Management

Dr. Ralph R. Young (CSEP, http://www.ralphyoung.net) has invested his career in assisting individuals, projects, and organizations to improve and helping others to grow. He has a wide diversity of experience, including private sector, Federal Government, local government, military, and oversight of programs. He consults and speaks frequently concerning project management, requirements development and management, and process improvement. Ralph has written a series of five books to date: Effective Requirements Practices (that describes what to do); The Requirements Engineering Handbook (that describes how to perform requirements-related work); Project Requirements: A Guide to Best Practices (which is written for program and project managers, to communicate the importance and value of incorporating good requirements practices); Performance-Based Earned Value (with Paul Solomon), which proposes a change to industry earned value management practices; and How to Save a Failing Project: Chaos to Control (with Steve Brady and Dennis Nagle) that provides guidance and insight based on multiple efforts in changing the direction of failing projects and also for projects that desire to perform well.. Ralph contributed to another book, The 77 Sins of Project Management, written by a large number of contributors selected by the publisher, that describes sins, danger signs, suggested solutions, and tips for 77 aspects of project management – thoughtful, considered advice. Ralph enjoys the outdoors, boating, reading, writing, and family activities, especially six grandchildren. He wants to write another book, concerning leadership. He resides on Kent Island, Maryland USA. He welcomes comments and feedback and can be reached at ryoungrr@aol.com.

• Toward Better RE

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

Founder of the consulting company “Crescendo Technologies”, Joseph Aracic is a System Engineering Consultant, focusing on requirements management techniques and processes, product line engineering and model driven engineering.

Prior to this, Joseph has been the manager of the Telelogic (Now an IBM Rational brand) French Professional Services team for requirements management and architecture modeling. Joseph has been involved in various system engineering projects (mainly in the defense industry) as consultant/coach in system engineering techniques deployment.

• A key technique

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