Case Study Research in Software Engineering: Guidelines and Examples

CHAPTER 14

A LARGE-SCALE CASE STUDY OF REQUIREMENTS AND VERIFICATION ALIGNMENT

14.1 INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents experiences from an ongoing large-scale, qualitative case study that will continue until at least the end of 2011. So far the study has involved 11 researchers at 2 universities (Lund University and Blekinge Institute of Technology, both in Sweden). The fourth author of this book is the project leader for the case study. The study currently includes six anonymous companies geographically distributed over five sites in Scandinavia. Thirty interviews have been transcribed and these transcriptions total approximately 217,030 words (or 319 pages of text with an average of around 680 words per page). Spin-off studies of both a descriptive and prescriptive nature are anticipated to follow on from the large-scale study when it completes.

The focus of the study is the alignment and mutual coordination of two different subprocesses in software engineering, namely, requirements engineering (RE) and verification and validation (V&V, also called testing). Throughout this book, the study is referred to as REVV study.

REVV study turned out to be a much more complex endeavor than originally anticipated, and the sheer amount of data in the form of transcripts and quotes make the material difficult to handle. This chapter summarizes the experiences of this study from a methodological point of view. Preliminary results from the partial analysis of the data based on 11 interviews ...