research interests
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       1.  Entrepreneurship and BUSINESS STRATEGY

We are developing new typologies of the software industry, and investigating how this categorization affects marketing, financing, business strategy, and technology adoption. We are also researching the factors that influence success and failure in software startups.

2.   just enough Requirements Management

The Capability Maturity Model (CMMI) movement has tended to cause companies to over-methodize, while the agile programming movement has tended to cause companies to under-methodize. The result is that requirements are either over-analyzed (and over-specified) or are totally ignored. This research attempts to create advice concerning the "right" level at which requirements should be addressed, with emphasis on recognizing that the "right" level is different for every project.

3.   alignment of Requirements with business goals

Businesses/organizations exist for some of combination of four reasons: (a) to fulfill a humanitarian goal (i.e., to make life more enjoyable/sustainable/worthwhile for humans or perhaps other non-human biospheres), (b) to create a financial return for their investors/owners/shareholders, (c) to help customers/clients succeed in their own missions (whatever they are), and (d) to improve the well-being of their employees. Meanwhile, requirements engineering is usually discussed as a technical process with engineering goals. So, the question is: how can we improve the requirements process so that the business's goals are supported. One small part of this is the creation of the discipline of triage.    

5.   Uniform Theories of Requirements specification (joint with Vincenzo Gervasi and Didar Zowghi)

This research is creating a theory of relativity for requirements specifications.

6.  UNDERSTANDING/Modeling THE Requirements elicitation TECHNIQUE SELECTION PROCESS (joint with Ann Hickey)

We are understanding and modeling the technique selection process used during elicitation.  Part of this research is to improve our understanding of how the world's expert analysts actually practice elicitation. 

7.  Requirements REsearch & Practice  trends (joint with Oscar Dieste, Ann Hickey, Natalia Juristo, and Ana Moreno)

We are conducting a number of analyses, including (a) trends in topics of interest among researchers in academe and industry as a function of time, (b) trends in requirements engineering publication outlets as a function of time, and (c) trends among requirements researchers as a function of time.  

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