Milestones and expected results
The main objective of the project is the systematic adoption of improvements to embedded systems requirements engineering techniques. This objective can be divided into two types of operational objectives:
1. The technical objective is for 14 independent software development companies, from different areas of Europe, to individually develop new and innovative requirements engineering methods/tools, and to implement them into their baseline projects. Cross fertilisation mechanisms for the SMEs, in the form of thematic group workshops and common Best Practice repositories, will be provided.
2. The dissemination objective is for both the participants in the experiments and the embedded software community at large to benefit from the introduction of new requirements gathering techniques. Furthermore, to aid the software community, the REDEST consortium aims to become an independent recognised source of requirements engineering information.
The project goals, broadly speaking, are as follows:
The
REDEST project aims to develop a selection of innovative requirements engineering
methodologies, both specific and general, to act as Best Practice Cases, in
order to raise the quality of European science and technology.
The
REDEST focus, in line with the dictates of 5th Framework Programme, will provide
very significant improvements to the field of essential technologies and infrastructures,
and embedded systems and services in particular.
The reality of European society is an increasing dependence on software, in
every walk of life. Therefore, by improving the requirements gathering phase
of the software development process, REDEST aims to improve the quality of
life of European citizens, by meeting their needs more accurately.
REDEST
aims to introduce methodologies to help companies augment the quality of their
software and production time-to-market, both of which will aid their economic
growth and competitivity, and thus European scientific and technological prospects.
Through
the development and implementation of successful and formalised methods for
software requirements gathering, REDEST aims to remove some of the burden
and stress that currently rests upon the shoulders of software managers and
developers / testers / etc.. By dynamising this development phase, job satisfaction
may be targeted and attained more easily.
REDEST's systematic development of improvements to requirements engineering, especially in embedded systems, may be viewed as having three operational objectives:
To
achieve the independent individual objectives of each of the Experiments;
To
formulate a common methodology, based on all the commonalities that exist
between the independent experiments;
To
disseminate those Best Practice Cases to the Embedded Software Community at
large.
WP1 - THE EXPERIMENTS.
The SMEs will shoulder the main responsibility for the correct development of their respective experiment. Each experiment will be composed of its own independent strategic, business and technical objectives.
The coordinating partners will supervise and provide counsel to the partners in their respective countries. Between them, they shall evaluate the results and elaborate the Best Practice cases. The experimental development tasks will be: a baseline project, in conjunction with an innovative experiment, with clear objectives and measurement facilities.
WP2 and WP3: CROSS FERTILISATION AND DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES
The dissemination objective will be reached by means of capturing the data from each separate experiment, and then disseminating it to the rest of the participants and to the wider embedded software community.
Local supporting organisations will be responsible for identifying and exploiting the synergies within that data, and also for the production of the dissemination material for external broadcasting.
REDEST is designed to be a growing modular structure, to which other sets of local supporting organisations and experiments, or even independent experiments, may be added.
WP4: MEASUREMENT AND EVALUATION OF RESULTS
The independent method that is produced by each experiment shall be used to measure the resultant business and technical benefits, as explained in their description. The local supporting organisations will ensure that this is correctly realised.
With regards to the evaluation of the awareness impact of the dissemination activities, also a project objective, the Project Co-ordinator will collect the data from every REDEST information request. Given the limited time span of the project, monthly statistics relating to the demand for information will be compiled and compared.
WP5: PROJECT MANAGEMENT
The Project Co-ordinator will be responsible for the project management, incorporating the achievement of the project objectives, the coordination of the project activities, and all relations between the European Commission and the consortium.
Milestones
and expected results 
M3 - at which time the basic measurement and dissemination mechanisms will have been designed and implemented.
M9 - mid-term, at which time the first measurements of the experiments will have taken place, and external dissemination will have been initiated.
M18 - this point will represent the end of the EC funded project. Each SME will have successfully implemented their innovative requirements gathering technique and/or tool, whereupon, their experiences will serve as Best Practice cases for further dissemination.
