Collaboration and Intercultural Issues on Requirements: Communication, Understanding and Softskills (CIRCUS)

Workshop in conjunction with: 17th IEEE International Requirements Engineering Conference (RE'09)

August 31, 2009 - Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Many development projects today involve teams, which are distributed over multiple sites or countries. Major drivers are cost competitiveness, access to talent regardless of location, and co-location with important markets or customers. While the advantages are obvious, global development also introduces big challenges. One of the major problem areas is requirements engineering. Communication and coordination of requirements are impeded by distance, different domain knowledge and organizational structures as well as cultural differences. Miscommunication is one major reason for issues such as cost overruns, project delay and quality problems.

This workshop will focus on multi-site collaboration and intercultural issues on requirements and how to deal with them, providing a forum for discussion of best practices, lessons learned and for experience exchange. Topics to be addressed include, but are not limited to:

* Requirements Engineering in globally distributed projects
* Multi-site collaboration and intercultural issues on requirements
* Communication in requirements development and requirements management
* Writing and understanding of requirements in an intercultural environment
* Softskills and other people-related aspects such as trust, personal contact and teambuilding in requirements engineering
* Training and coaching in global requirements engineering
* Delegation of responsibility in globally distributed projects

The CIRCUS Workshops will be held on Monday, August 31st, 2009.

Paper Submission: June 21st, 2009
Notification of Acceptance: July 13th, 2009
Camera-Ready Paper: August 3rd, 2009