Mastering Concept Exploration in Large Industrial Research Projects

Concept exploration, requirement specification and analysis are activities of utmost importance in the development life-cycle of complex systems especially when the business domain is unfamiliar to the designers and many partners are jointly involved in a project, as in industrial research project funded by government institutions. A critical role is then played by the characteristics of the methods, notations and tools adopted for carrying out these activities. This paper proposes a goal-oriented methodology for addressing both early and late requirement engineering phases which is lean, easy to master and apply and, at the same time, clear and rigorous. The methodology is not the result of a pure speculative process but has been concretely shaped in the context of a real large research project where it is showing its effectiveness in fostering cooperation and clean project evolution.