Testing Quality Requirements of a System-of-Systems in the Public Sector - Challenges and Potential Remedies

Abstract

Quality requirements is a difficult concept in software projects, and testing software qualities is a well-known challenge. Without proper management of quality requirements, there is an increased risk that the software product under development will not meet the expectations of its future users. In this paper, we share experiences from testing quality requirements when developing a large system-of-systems in the public sector in Sweden. We complement the experience reporting by analyzing documents from the case under study. As a final step, we match the identified challenges with solution proposals from the literature. We report five main challenges covering inadequate requirements engineering and disconnected test managers. Finally, we match the challenges to solutions proposed in the scientific literature, including integrated requirements engineering, the twin peaks model, virtual plumblines, the QUPER model, and architecturally significant requirements. Our experiences are valuable to other large development projects struggling with testing of quality requirements. Furthermore, the report could be used by as input to process improvement activities in the case under study.