Leveraging Social Networks Constructed from System Engineering Repositories

Communication and coordination are key factors to achieve successful requirements and software engineering. However, it is very difficult to establish the right communication and coordination channels, especially in large organizations. We investigate the automatic construction of social network models from existing requirements and other systems engineering models, in order to facilitate communication. We conducted a design science research study, resulting in the approach Low-Cost Communication and Coordination (LoCo CoCo), which automatically creates and visualizes social networks based on selected system engineering components. LoCo CoCo creates social networks of real-life, productive systems engineering models at an automotive OEM, which we evaluated based on 12 surveys and 10 interviews with professionals who assessed whether LoCo CoCo is beneficial in their everyday work. Our results indicate that LoCo CoCo as an approach is feasible and useful to overcome existing communication challenges. Remaining challenges are the quality of existing social data and a wider adoption into daily systems engineering work.