What are the benefits and challenges of using QAWs to elicit quality attribute requirements?

1 What are QAWs?

QAWs are structured and moderated sessions that aim to identify, refine, and analyze the quality attribute requirements of a software system. They involve a series of steps, such as scenario brainstorming, scenario consolidation, scenario prioritization, scenario evaluation, and scenario refinement. QAWs typically last for two or three days and require the participation of various stakeholders, such as users, developers, testers, managers, and customers.

2 Benefits of QAWs

QAWs can provide several benefits for eliciting quality attribute requirements, such as uncovering hidden or conflicting requirements that might otherwise be missed, aligning expectations and perspectives of stakeholders, validating and verifying the feasibility and suitability of architecture and design decisions, generating realistic and measurable scenarios to use as test cases or benchmarks for the system, and documenting and communicating the quality attribute requirements and the rationale behind them.

3 Challenges of QAWs

QAWs can be a challenge when eliciting quality attribute requirements. They can be time-consuming, resource-intensive, and subject to the biases of participants, moderators, or architects. Furthermore, they may be difficult to scale or adapt to different contexts, domains, or technologies. Additionally, the input and output data may be inadequate and lead to incomplete or inaccurate results. Lastly, it can be difficult to integrate or reconcile QAWs with other requirements engineering methods or tools.

4 How to conduct QAWs

In order to conduct QAWs effectively, it is important to define the scope and objectives of the QAW and communicate them to the participants. Additionally, you should select participants carefully, ensuring their representation, diversity, and commitment. Furthermore, you need to prepare the materials and resources needed for the QAW, such as scenarios, templates, checklists, and guidelines. It is also important to choose a suitable location and schedule for the QAW that considers the availability, convenience, and comfort of the participants. Additionally, roles and responsibilities should be assigned for the QAW such as facilitator, recorder, presenter, and observer. The QAW steps should be followed systematically and consistently using appropriate techniques and tools. Lastly, it is essential to document and report the QAW results and feedback including quality attribute requirements, scenarios, architecture, and issues.

5 Tips for QAWs

Quality attribute requirements are integral for the success of any software system, and Quality Attribute Workshops (QAWs) can help you elicit them in a systematic and collaborative way. To make QAWs more effective and efficient, you should use a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods to prioritize and evaluate the requirements and scenarios. Additionally, it's important to use a common language and terminology, as well as examples and analogies to explain the requirements. Visual aids and diagrams can also support the presentation of the requirements. Moreover, feedback loops and iterations can help refine and improve the quality attribute requirements and scenarios. By following these best practices, you can make QAWs more successful in your software architecture project.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?