An NL-based Foundation for Increased Traceability, Transparency, and Speed in Continuous Development of Information Systems

The motivation for this paper comes from the problems in developing information systems that (a) the language and way of thinking of users usually differ (considerably) from the language and way of thinking of developers, (b) the user wishes are often unclear (at least initially), and (c) user wishes continuously change over time. These problems are all requirements-related and partly related to natural language (NL) use. Moreover, nowadays the ‘times to market’ should be shorter and shorter and environments are changing quicker and quicker. This asks for increased traceability, transparency, and development speed during the continuous development and evolution of information systems. Our principal results and contributions are: A novel, NL-based development path for functional requirements. This development path enables ‘stepwise clarification’ and ‘stepwise specification’ in order to tackle the problems mentioned above. It gradually goes from the informal natural language and way of thinking of users to the more formal language and way of thinking of developers (inputs, outputs, parameters, procedures, etc.). Some general (NL-)structures and forms for such a development path are studied. Moreover, an evolutionary development path for a whole system is presented. These development paths form a foundation for increased traceability, transparency, and development speed in the continuous development and evolution of information systems. Moreover, the nature of increments (extensions and adaptions) and their development are studied in detail.