Knowledge Factors and Models of Requirements Change Management Process Based on Causality Analysis

Abstract

Requirements change(RC) is still a key challenge to the success rate of software, a crucial factor of software risk. For decreasing the possibility of RC, improving the quality of software, one outlet is to change management thought of RC, to adopt knowledge management(KM) method. According to the steps of KM, the knowledge sources in RC management process(RCMP) should be first discovered, and the relationship among them should be connected. This paper analyzes the key knowledge existed in RCMP, and the essence of RC, formally defines and classifies inner and external causes of RC which is integrated into an ontology model of change causes, as well as presents an ontology model of problematic requirements . By analyzing RCMP on the basis of change management steps, another ontology model of RCMP is built, and all models are finally integrated into OntoRCMPonCau which is concerned of change causes. An application of OntoRCMPonCau is introduced to collect knowledge in RCMP.