Success Factors in the Specification of Operational Scenarios - An Industrial Perspective

Requirements elicitation has since long been recognized as critical to the success of requirements engineering, hence also to the success of systems engineering. Achieving sufficient scope and quality in the requirements elicitation process poses a great challenge, given the limited slices of budget and time available for this relatively sizeable activity. Among all predominant requirements elicitation techniques and approaches, operational scenarios development has a special standing and character. The set of operational scenarios is acknowledged as a constituent deliverable in the requirements engineering process, serving many purposes. Hence, ensuring success in the development of operational scenarios constitutes a consequential area of research. In this paper we present the results from an industrial survey on experienced and presumptive success factors in the development of operational scenarios. The survey was done using a strength-based approach, involving engineers and managers in two organizations developing cyber-physical systems in the transportation and construction equipment businesses. Our results suggest that operational scenarios reusability and a collaborative operational scenarios development environment are two prime areas for success. Our study provides two contributions. First, we provide an account of success factors in the view of practitioners. This is fundamental knowledge, since a successful deployment of any state-of-the-art approach and technology in a systems engineering organization needs to take the views of the practitioners into consideration. Second, the study adds input to the body of knowledge on requirements elicitation, and can thereby help generate suggestions on direction for future work by researchers and developers.