Learning to Tailor Documentation of Software Requirements

Eric Knauss (University Hannover, Germany)

Daniel Lübke (University Hannover, Germany)

Thomas Flohr (University Hannover, Germany)

Abstract: In software projects, it is important to determine the right amount of requirements documentation. If the documentation is not detailed enough, it is an insufficient base for contracts. If it is too long, it is expensive to maintain. Therefore the amount of documentation should be adjusted for each project. Often this step is omitted, partly to avoid the effort of tailoring, but mainly because project members do not know how to tailor or even are afraid of the consequences and associated risks. In this paper we share our experience in addressing both aspects with a mixture of organizational and individual learning. We successfully used our approach in university teaching and in parts with industrial partners.

Keywords: FLOW, agile hour, documentation tailoring, experience base, university teaching

Categories: D.2.1, D.2.9