Daniel M. Berry

Cheriton School of Computer Science
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, ON, Canada

Abstract:

During one research study, in fact, to categorize the user space of the privacy-and-security part of computer-based systems (CBSs), we observed after the fact, that our grounded analysis (GA), the method that leads to a grounded theory (GT), amounted to a very thorough and effective requirements elicitation and analysis process for a CBS. GA, serving as a requirements elicitation and analysis process, produces the CBS's requirements specification as a GT hypothesizing that the specification specifies the client's requirements. The subsequent CBS development, implementation, and validation amount to a test of the GT.

One big question that every requirement engineer faces is knowing when to stop finding stakeholders to interview, when to stop interviewing these stakeholders, and when to stop the analysis of the interview data. In general, GA, including the data-gathering interviews, continues until saturation is reached. Parts of the GA method are focused on recognizing when saturation has been reached. As such, using GA to conduct requirements elicitation and anlysis provides an answer to the big question. The elicitation and analysis continue until saturation is reached.

Work with Michael W. Godfrey, Ric Holt, Cory J. Kapser, Isabel Ramos, Janna-Lynn Dupree, and Edward Lank