Aspect-oriented requirements analysis modelling with scenarios

Requirements should be specified and structured in such a way that their inherent changes must be coped with efficiently. However, requirements that cut across other requirements may result in tangled representations. Consequently, the reaction to requirements change is more difficult, since the impact of the change is more complicated to handle. Therefore, it is important to consider crosscutting requirements early in the software lifecycle. Early aspects advocates the separation of crosscutting concerns (aspects) during requirements and architecture stages. In this tutorial, we consider aspects at the requirements analysis level. In particular, we concentrate on scenario-based requirements analysis modelling. A scenario is an example trace of desired or existing system behavior. Scenarios are commonly used in requirements engineering because they are easily understood by all stakeholders and are frequently modelled using activity, sequence and state transition diagrams. Among other applications, we can use scenario-based aspect-oriented requirements analysis modelling to model volatile requirements. By modularizing volatile concerns with aspect techniques, we can build a stepping-stone for future management of unanticipated requirements change.