A Never-Ending Story: Revisiting Requirements Major Misunderstandings

2023-08-15

Cadernos do IME - Série Informática

AI Summary

This paper addresses a persistent foundational misconception in requirements engineering—the erroneous framing of requirements as static, pre-existing artifacts rather than dynamic, co-constructed understandings. Method: Drawing on academic metaphor analysis, cross-cultural narrative analogy (e.g., *The Neverending Story*), and critical reflection, the study systematically identifies and clarifies six historically entrenched misinterpretations, exposing recurrent practical pitfalls in requirements elicitation. Contribution/Results: The work proposes a paradigm shift—“requirements engineering as an educational process”—and constructs a collaborative, transparent, and reflexive requirements evolution pathway. It introduces actionable principles for transparency in practice, advancing both theoretical understanding of requirements as socio-technical phenomena and pragmatic guidance for human-centered, iterative co-construction. The resulting framework bridges epistemological rigor with operational utility, repositioning requirements engineering from a technical task toward an educative, participatory, and ethically grounded discipline.

Technology Category

• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Knowledge Engineering
• Search and Optimization: Metareasoning and Metaheuristics
• Cognitive Modeling & Cognitive Systems: Analogy

Application Category

• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Models for Web evolution
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization
• Graph Algorithms and Modeling for the Web: Efficient manipulation of static and dynamic Web-related graphs

Abstract

A medalha mágica é central no romance de Michael End.  Esta medalha mostra duas cobras mordendo uma à outra, em um enlace. A crença popular diz que o desenho da medalha mudou para o filme de Wolfgang Petersen, ressaltando, na imagem, uma sensação de infinito ainda maior.  Essa medalha tornou-se um amuleto para os fãs da estória.  Esse artigo irá brotar uma visão ampla no campo de requisitos, comparando-a à busca de Percival pelo cálice sagrado.  Utilizando metáforas acadêmicas e da cultura popular o artigo afirma que a engenharia de requisitos é um processo educacional, que deve ser feito com transparência. Equívocos históricos sobre requisitos são revistos, armadilhas a serem evitadas são apontadas e novos caminhos a serem construídos são propostos.

Problem

• Addresses historical misunderstandings in requirements engineering.
• Proposes new approaches to improve requirements engineering processes.
• Emphasizes transparency and education in requirements engineering.

Innovation

• Uses metaphors to explain requirements engineering
• Highlights historical misunderstandings in requirements
• Proposes new approaches for requirements education