Bridging the gap between users and requirements engineering: the scenario-based approach

Scenarios have been advocated as a means of improving Requirements Engineer ing. The assumption is that scenarios allow users to better express their r equirements (or more generally their knowledge of the constructed system) b ecause they use their own vocabulary. In Europe, a few scenario-based metho ds and tools have already been developed in research; besides, scenarios ar e widely used in industry. In this context, the long Term Research 21.903 E SPRIT project CREWS has undertaken research on Cooperative Requirements Eng ineering With Scenarios. This work includes: (i) surveys on scenario-based Requirements Engineering approaches and on the use of scenarios in European industry, together with (ii) the development of four interrelated methods for the acquisition and validation of requirements based on scenarios. This paper reports the CREWS objectives and achievements, and further details t he CREWS-L'Ecritoire approach, which purpose is to guide the elicitation of requirements by exploiting textual scenarios. Pointers to the CREWS survey s, to the four interrelated CREWS approaches. and to on-going works underta ken by CREWS are also given.