Complete thesis - Murdoch University

to undertake Requirements Engineering (the REBOK) competently.2.4 Bodies of KnowledgeThe nature of RE problems described in Chapter 1 supports the view that a great deal ofspecialised knowledge is brought to structure and tame the complexity of tasks undertaken.Practitioners, and students, are seen to need conceptual knowledge in several overlappingdomains in order to perform Requirements Engineering tasks successfully.Several effortshave been made to identify knowledge required to undertake either RE in its own right, oras a component of IT related specialisations. A discussion of these follows. As the numberof topics pertinent to RE knowledge is large in some BoKs and model curricula, RE topiccoverage in these is only summarised here.Table 2.15: BoK matches for RE-related topicsTopics SWEBOK SEEK ISBOK ACSBOK INCOSERE Process + + o - -Feasibility Study - - + - -Elicitation + + + + +Analysis + + + - +Specification + + + + +Verification/validation + + + + +Management + + o - -Other Software TopicsQuality Standards o - + - -(process/product)Project Management o + + + -Programming Languageso o o - -Applications - - + o -Generic SkillsModelling (conceptual, o + o + +formal, etc)System thinking o o + + +Communication Skills o o + - -Team Skills o - + - -Ethics - - + - -Legend: + extensive coverage; o partial coverage; - minimal or no coverageAs Table 2.15, which summarises the topic coverage of these BoKs, shows, the SE, IS andCS efforts may be considered to have developed the most comprehensive BoKs, due to boththe attempt to be as wide-encompassing as possible within the range of IT education andthe perceived prestige of their publishing bodies.However, this table indicates the disparity of coverage of even the core activities of RE. Onceother skills are included, the patchiness of coverage increases. Possible reasons for this are68