=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2541/paper2
|storemode=property
|title=Karlskrona Manifesto and Software Design
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2541/paper2.pdf
|volume=Vol-2541
|authors=Shola Oyedeji,Birgit Penzenstadler
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/re/OyedejiP19
}}
==Karlskrona Manifesto and Software Design==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2541/paper2.pdf
Copyright © 2019 for this paper by its authors. Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Experiences from Applying the Karlskrona Manifesto
Principles for Sustainability in Software System
Design
Shola Oyedeji Birgit Penzenstadler
LUT School of Engineering Science LUT School of Engineering Science
Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology
Lappeenranta, Finland Lappeenranta, Finland
shola.oyedeji@lut.fi birgit.penzenstadler@csulb.edu
Abstract— Sustainability in software design is an evolving area tainable Systems (RE4SuSy) such as in 2013 [10], 2014 [11],
that requires more practical guide on how software designers, 2015 [12], 2017 [13], 2018 [14]. One major outcome from
developers and requirement engineers can elicit software sustain- RE4SuSy is the Karlskrona Manifesto for Sustainability Design
ability requirements. The Karlskrona Manifesto for Sustainabil- (KMSD) [15] to guide and support the consideration of sus-
ity Design (KMSD) principles serve as a common ground to guide
tainability in software design.
and support sustainability in software design.
However, there is little research as of now showing how these Currently, there has been little research on applying the
KMSD principles are applied in software requirements elicitation KMSD principles to software system design and reporting the
and software design in general. This paper presents some of our application of those principles in comparison to other success-
evaluation of how these KMSD principles, the software sustaina- ful manifestos such as Agile manifesto [16] used for example
bility requirement template and software sustainability require- in design practices to specify requirements [17] and agile in
ment best practice template were applied in two case studies by system design thinking [18]. The lack of research attention
stakeholders (requirement engineers, CTO and software develop- towards how the KMSD can be applied in software system
ers). design and development, most especially the requirement
Keywords—Requirements engineering, Karlskrona Manifesto,
software design, sustainability design
phase, has limited the understanding of stakeholders on how
these principles can be effective in supporting and guiding re-
quirement engineers to consider sustainability [19].
I. INTRODUCTION This paper presents early results from two case studies
The United Nations highlight sustainability as one of the where the KMSD principles have been applied in the require-
world’s major challenges [1][2] and the United Nations Sus- ment gathering and design phase with different stakeholders.
tainable development Goals (SDGs) [3] show the global moti- We present the usage of the software sustainability requirement
vation for action towards sustainability. Sustainability has template as well as the software sustainability requirement best
gained more attention as an important concern from many re- practice template in the result section.
searchers in different research disciplines in software engineer- The next section provides an overview of related work.
ing and computing [4]. In the industry, sustainability has been Section III describes the study design. Section IV covers re-
on the agenda of many companies for decades, but their envi- sults. Stakeholders’ feedback are detailed in section V. Discus-
ronmental, social and governance activities are often discon- sion is in Section VI. The concluding remarks are in Section
nected from their core strategy because they lack understanding VII.
of how to integrate sustainability into their business models [5].
Furthermore, sustainability is a key driver for innovations in II. BACKGROUND
companies by creating new opportunities to lower costs, add Requirements engineering is the key to ensure sustainability
value and gain competitive advantages [6]. However, for soft- in any software design and development project [20]. Require-
ware design, development and requirements engineering pro- ment engineers have a role to play [21] because the require-
fessionals in industry, there are few tools that wrap core princi- ments phase in any software design dictates and directs how
ples of sustainability together [7] [8] for better understanding any software will be developed [22]. Report by Mahaux et al.
of software sustainability from the different sustainability di- [23] and the proposed software requirements prioritization
mensions (Economic, Environmental, Individual, Social and based on a multi criteria decision making model approach [24]
Technical) [9] . In requirements engineering there have been shows requirements engineering has received some level of
different research efforts to tackle the issue of sustainability in research attention promoting sustainability and proposing dif-
software design through workshops of researchers called the ferent solutions for sustainability in requirements engineering.
International Workshop on Requirements Engineering for Sus-
The Workshop series on Requirements Engineering for tory action research is also a method that best suit research
Sustainable Systems (RE4SuSy) [14] also has championed where researchers (authors) are involved in supporting and
efforts to increase awareness about sustainability for research- making necessary decisions with stakeholders throughout the
ers and interested stakeholders in this domain. This is to im- research process based on how stakeholders apply the KMSD
prove the narrow understanding of sustainability in require- principles.
ments engineering as detailed in [25] which has limited the
A. Research Questions
focus of sustainability to either one or two dimensions during
requirement gathering. 1. How applicable are the KMSD principles during soft-
However with continuous individual research efforts to- ware requirement gathering?
wards sustainability in requirements engineering approaches, 2. What is the impact of the KMSD principles on stake-
the current practices by industry practitioners in software re- holders during software requirements elicitation?
quirements engineering do not reflect these continuous research In this paper, the focus is on answering these research ques-
efforts due to less engagement for transfer of research to prac- tions, identifying issues and challenges of using KMSD
tice [26]. Promoting and increasing research engagement with principles during software requirement, and using feedback
industry practitioners will improve awareness about the bene- from stakeholders to offer others ways on how KMSD
fits of sustainability in software requirements engineering. A principles can be improved to support and guide stakehold-
study result shows requirements engineering practitioners atti- ers during software design and development.
tude and perceptions with regards to sustainability are limited B. Research Elements and Case Study
due to a narrow understanding of sustainability and poor organ-
izational awareness about the positive opportunities for apply- The main research element are the Karlskrona Manifesto
ing sustainability [7]. Furthermore, another major challenge of for Sustainability Design (KMSD) principles detailed in Table
sustainability in software requirements engineering is that there I. The KMSD was initiated through an initiative to create a
is no single point of reference where different research works common ground and a point of reference for the global com-
covering the application of sustainability in software require- munity of research and practice in software and sustainability
ment are gathered and exemplified which necessitated the au- to effectively communicate major issues, goals, values and
thors in providing different techniques for handling sustainabil- principles of sustainability for the design and development of
ity in requirement engineering for all interested researchers and software systems [15].
practitioners [27]. The KMSD principles were used in the two case studies
One of the major drivers for supporting sustainability dur- with support of the software sustainability requirements tem-
ing requirements engineering is the ability to discuss how sus- plate (see Table III) and software sustainability requirements
tainability can come into play with benefits for both end users best practice documentation template [29] (Table VI). The
and all stakeholders involved. For example the WinWin nego- KMSD principles were assign to different software develop-
tiation model with integrated sustainability concepts by Seyff et ment life cycle (SDLC) phases to explain what each of the
al. [8] supports negotiation and discussion of sustainability KMSD principles means at each phase of the SDLC base on
during requirements engineering to facilitate impact assessment our understanding [30]. Table II details how the KMSD princi-
of those requirements on sustainability. This can help improve ples were translated to each software development life cycle
sustainability consideration in the overall software design and phase and applied in the two case studies.
also consideration of all sustainability dimensions during re-
quirement engineering by requirements engineering practition- TABLE I. DESCRIPTION OF THE KARLSKRONA MANIFESTO PRINCIPLES,
ADAPTED FROM [31].
ers.
The gap evident between the works cited above shows the Principle
Principle Description
need to channel research efforts towards the application of Number
KMSD principles in requirements engineering and software Sustainability is never an
design in general to foster better understanding of what sus- isolated property. It requires
tainability means in software design and also support the adop- transdisciplinary common
Sustainability is
P1 ground of sustainability as
tion of sustainability as a key component in software design. systemic
well as a global picture of
sustainability within other
III. STUDY DESIGN
properties.
This research is designed to show the impact of KMSD We have to include different
principles during software requirements gathering and design. Sustainability has dimensions into our analysis if
We studied how KMSD principles reshaped the software re- P2 multiple dimen- we are to understand the na-
quirements gathering process and the usefulness of applying sions. ture of sustainability in any
the principles as guide for stakeholders; especially requirement given situation.
engineers /software developers. Working in sustainability
Sustainability trans- means working with people
The research method applied is participatory action re-
P3 cends multiple dis- from across many disciplines,
search [28] because it prevents a researcher from manipulation ciplines. addressing the challenges
of the individual feelings and views of stakeholders. Participa- from multiple perspectives.
Sustainability is a Sustainability has to be con- handling of pension applications. The application is called pen-
concern independ- sidered even if the primary sion benefit tracker. Figure 1 shows the use case diagram of the
P4
ent of the purpose focus of the system under application in case study 1.
of the system. design is not sustainability.
There are at least two spheres
to consider in system design:
Sustainability ap-
the sustainability of the sys-
plies to both a sys-
P5 tem itself and how it affects
tem and its wider
the sustainability of the wider
contexts.
system of which it will be
part.
Strive to make the status of
System visibility is
the system and its context
a necessary precon-
visible at different levels of
P6 dition and enabler
abstraction and perspectives to
for sustainability
enable participation and in-
design.
formed responsible choice.
Seek interventions that have
the most leverage on a system
and consider the opportunity
costs: whenever you are tak-
Sustainability re-
ing action towards sustainabil-
P7 quires action on
ity, consider whether this is
multiple levels.
the most effective way of
intervening in comparison to
alternative actions (leverage
points). Figure 1. Use case for pension benefit tracker [19].
Innovation in sustainability
Sustainability re- can play out as decoupling The second case study is in a university with the concern of
quires meeting the present and future needs. By how to display energy usage data within the university. The
needs of future moving away from the lan- main requirement for the project is to transform energy usage
P8 generations without guage of conflict and the data into CO2 emissions that will educate the university staff
compromising the trade-off mindset, we can and students about sustainability. The project requires a web
prosperity of the identify and enact choices that application interface which will display the energy usage and
current generation benefit both present and fu-
carbon emission. The goal is to let the public know more about
ture.
the electricity consumption of each building in the university
Multiple timescales, including
Sustainability re- and understand the relation between the electricity consump-
longer-term indicators in as-
P9 quires long-term tion and carbon emission (CO2).
sessment and decisions,
thinking. The KMSD principles were applied as guide during each of
should be considered.
the case study (case study one and two) for requirement gather-
Table I and II were provided to the stakeholders in the two ing and analysis. Stakeholders were able to use to the KMSD
case studies as guide for them to understand the KMSD princi- principles to cross check the sustainability aspect of each re-
ples and how they apply to different software development life quirement and how to evaluate those requirements with consid-
cycle phases (SDLC). P1 to P9 represent the KMSD principles eration of each sustainability dimension. For better understand-
from 1 to 9 in Table I. The software sustainability requirements ing of stakeholders thinking during classification of require-
template (Table III) was used to collect information on how ment into sustainability dimensions, the software sustainability
stakeholders relate each requirement to sustainability dimen- requirements template was used to document stakeholders’
sions and their reasoning for associating each requirement to a explanations for each requirement mapped to a particular sus-
particular dimension. The software sustainability requirements tainability dimension. The software sustainability requirements
best practice template (Table VI) was applied in highlighting best practice documentation template was provided to stake-
important key practices during the requirements gathering. holders to document what stakeholders perceived as a best
These two templates offer researchers involved in the two case practice during the case study.
studies better understanding of how stakeholders translate all
information provided to them into the software design.
The first case study is within a medium size company with
the goal of developing a web application to replace manual
TABLE II. KARLSKRONA MANIFESTO PRINCIPLES IN RELATION TO SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT LIFE-CYCLE (SDLC) PHASES [30]
SDLC Phases Karlskrona Manifesto Principles
Phase 1. P1- This ensures that the project initiation considers sustainability in the overall project
Project Definition definition from the beginning.
P2- Software sustainability has different dimensions that have to be considered from the
beginning for better project management with different stakeholders.
P3- Software project usually involves stakeholders from different domains, incorporating
their sustainability concerns provides better management of those concerns from multiple
perspectives which can help the incorporation of sustainability for the software.
Phase 2. P2- It is important to take note of user requirements in relation to each of the sustainability
User Requirements dimensions in order to have better sustainability analysis during the analysis and design
Definition phase
P4- During elicitation of system requirements, requirement engineers should consider sus-
Phase 3. tainability concerns for the system during the requirements definition even when it is not a
System Require- core part of the user requirements.
ments Definition P5- Cross evaluate the consequential impacts of the system sustainability requirements and
the environment in which the system will function.
P2- Applying this principle provides a blueprint for system evaluation from all sustainabil-
ity dimensions (economic, environment, social, individual and technical).
P4- At this phase, this principle helps to encourage analysis of system design based on
Phase 4.
sustainability in order to facilitate better sustainable system.
Analysis and De-
P6- Application of this principle enables better visual and visible overview of the system
sign
from different levels of abstraction.
P8- This will provide better understanding during analysis to make better choices that will
help the potential users of the system in present and in future when the system evolves.
P2- This will encourage developers during this phase to consider different sustainability
Phase 5. dimensions, especially technical, social and individual dimensions.
Development P4- Encourage the search for better avenues to make the system sustainable from the de-
velopment perspective (developers) and also the functions of the system to aid longevity.
P2- Provides integration and for test team to have a sustainability template that can be used
Phase 6. to test the system for all sustainability dimensions based on the sustainability requirement
Integration and output from phases 2, 3 and 4.
Testing P4- Application of this principle will aid consideration of sustainability in this phase even
if the primary focus of system is not about sustainability.
P5- Provides beforehand reasoning for the development team to consider the sustainability
of the system, its production environment and when pushing it live for use.
Phase 7.
P7- Based on principle 5 (P5), this principle will aid consideration of seeking the involve-
Implementation
ment of different stakeholders to make the actualization of the system sustainability possi-
ble in the production environment and when pushed live.
P9- This principle at this stage help to create the conscious awareness so that when the
Phase 8.
system is in a live environment, there will be continuous evaluation to assess the system
Sustainment/
sustainability and think of ways for optimizing and improving the sustainability of the
Maintenance
system from the different dimensions.
TABLE III. SUSTAINABILITY REQUIREMENT TEMPLATE
Requirement Sustainability Dimension Explanation
State each of the Highlight which of the sustainability dimension relates to all the Provide an explanation for your
requirement in a way that stated requirements. decision to associate each requirement
makes it possible to to a particular sustainability
associate the requirement These are the general explanation of the five sustainability dimension.
to at least one or more of dimensions based on the KMSD group [32]:
the sustainability Individual sustainability refers to maintaining human
dimensions capital (e.g., health, education, skills, knowledge, leader-
ship, and access to services).
Social sustainability aims at preserving the societal
communities in their solidarity and services.
Economic sustainability aims at maintaining capital and
added value.
Environmental sustainability refers to improving human
welfare by protecting the natural resources: water, land,
air, minerals and ecosystem services.
Technical sustainability refers to longevity of
information, systems, and infrastructure and their
adequate evolution with changing surrounding
conditions.
stakeholders involved in the case studies with slight modifica-
IV. RESULTS tion by authors to improve readability. This is to ensure that the
The first result is the use of KMSD principles for both case exact understanding of stakeholders is documented and report-
studies in which stakeholders explained their understanding of ed in this paper.
those principles with regards to each of their application. The
KMSD principles applied in each SDLC phase were detailed in
Table IV. The information contained in Table IV is all from
TABLE IV. KARLSKRONA MANIFESTO PRINCIPLES APPLIED IN THE TWO CASE STUDIES
SDLC Phases Case Study 1 Case Study 2
KMSD Principle 2 KMSD Principle 1
The technical, social dimension and indi- The project is centered around sustainabil-
vidual dimensions was considered. ity awareness base on energy usage and co2
1. The technical dimension focused on the emissions of university staff and students
how well the final system can function KMSD Principle 2
effectively and efficiently to achieve all The Sustainable Business Canvas provides
system goals. thinking on different sustainability dimen-
Phase 1.
2. Social dimension covers how different sions during the project initiations.
Project Definition
state branches can form a community to KMSD Principle 3
share pension application The project involves different stakeholders
3. The individual dimension center on the with different expertise and departments,
developer’s satisfaction within the company they were all involve in using the Sustaina-
throughout the development of the pension ble Business Canvas for the project in order
tracking system to incorporate all concerns and sustainabil-
ity ideas for the project
KMSD Principle 2 KMSD Principle 2 and 6
1. Reduce pension processing time to de- The user requirement was divided into dif-
crease the stress and pain of pensioners ferent sustainability dimensions for better
covers the individual dimension. analysis namely:
2. Using the software sustainability re- 1.Provide information on energy usage
quirement template provides an avenue to within the university (Economic and Tech-
improve the overall performance of the nical)
Phase 2.
application from different sustainability 2. Show the carbon emission (Environmen-
User Requirements
dimensions (economic, social, individual, tal)
Definition
technical and environmental) 3. Allow weekly sustainability challenge
and show winners (Social)
4. Section for user community to connect
and discuss (Social)
5. Provide feature to share things to social
media (individual)
KMSD Principle 4 KMSD Principle 4
The main goal of the application is to re- The application main goal is about sustain-
place manual pension application; however, ability awareness in the university for staff
some sustainability concerns were also and students.
included such as: KMSD Principle 5, 7 and 9
1. Increase sustainability awareness among These are the following impacts of the sys-
tem sustainability requirements:
company staff using the application and
1. Converting the energy usage in form of
customers (pensioners) carbon emissions CO2 and presenting it as
Phase 3.
2. Reduce the use of paper for pension ap- distance between two cities will help edu-
System Require-
plication cate the users about sustainability and the
ments Definition
users impacts on the environment.
3. Decrease the amount of printing during
2. Providing a community section with
pension application weekly challenge in the application will go
4. Increase number of options for pension a long to increase sense of belonging and
application notification foster better habits towards sustainability in
the university.
3. The ability to share weekly challenge
results by users will boost their interest and
increase awareness about sustainability.
KMSD Principle 2
The application will help economically
because of reduce energy usage and cost. It
will also help socially to bring people into a
common community and environmentally
to increase awareness about sustainability
Phase 4.
with the need for users to reduce their nega-
Analysis and De-
tive impacts
sign
KMSD Principle 8
This principle encourages the use of API to
allow different kind of users to interact and
feed the application with data.
The second result is the preliminary evaluation of the sus- of the sustainability requirement template in case study one as
tainability requirement template showing how stakeholders documented by stakeholders with slight modification by re-
categorized different system requirement based on their under- searchers to improve readability.
standing of sustainability dimensions. Table V presents the use
TABLE V. SUSTAINABILITY REQUIREMENT TEMPLATE USED IN CASE STUDY ONE
Requirement Sustainability Dimension Sustainability Dimension and Explanation
The pension tracker application should Economic and Technical It will save us money of using interstate
be accessible online via web at any courier to send, receive and track pension
branch applications. (economic)
To achieve this, a good functional system
with no down time that will satisfy user needs
is required (technical)
The application should have ability to Technical, individual and Ease of use (individual ) and also allows
enable Managers, pensioners and other social everyone using the system to be up to date
stakeholders check application status about pension application status (Technical
and social)
Provide automatic status communication Individual and Social It will keep clients (pension applicants) up to
and notification at each stage of benefit date about their application (individual and
application social)
Allow bulk or single file upload Individual and Technical More options to reduce time spent in
uploading application files (individual,
technical)
Provide SMS authorization from Individual Provide ease of processing and approval for
managers in benefit department managers (individual)
Send Incomplete documentation Individual and economic Reduce time of processing the pension
notification to benefit department staff application (individual, economic)
Provide email and SMS notification as Individual Provide more options to increase user
an option for all users preference because some users might not
have access to email (individual)
Provide option of different display to Individual This promote inclusiveness especially with
magnify fonts for users with visual users with visual problem (individual)
problems
Provide option to preview pension Individual Reduce amount of error in applications and
application and save electronically saves time of double work (individual)
Add a tag message below each Environmental Promote sustainability awareness among staff
notification “Save the planet from and clients (pension applicants)
environmental waste, print only when
needed”
Provide energy report for system usage Environmental and This will enable users track the amount of
Technical energy consumed by the application and
discuss how we can improve it
Table VI present the requirements best practice template was considered in this case study and showing the understand-
documentation from case study two. It shows the use of the ing of sustainability based on what is considered as a good sus-
requirement elicitation best practice template [29]. This is an tainability practice during requirement gathering.
example of documentation and reporting of how sustainability
TABLE VI. SOFTWARE SUSTAINABILITY REQUIREMENT ELICITATION BEST PRACTICE FROM CASE STUDY TWO (SUSTAINABILITY AWARENESS VIA ENERGY
DATA DISPLAY)
Element Description
Title Develop sustainability awareness in energy display application for the public
Date 12/08/2018
Authors Mistretta Tom – Devinez Alexandre
Target Audience Engineers / Developers
Objective Create awareness about sustainability requirements in a project
Encourage the development of ideas around sobriety
Location Applicable worldwide
Stakeholders Engineers / Developers / Users
Methodology Discussion among software development team on what sustainability means to them by
going through the Karlskrona Manifesto principles, FSSSD and SSDC
Dialogue about which requirements can better influence users’ awareness of sustainabil-
ity
Dialogue about which requirements can better teach users to improve their daily habits,
influenced by the information shown to them
Discussion of how to integrate sobriety awareness requirement in the project
Find a way to make the project attractive to users
Selected Karlskrona Principle 6: System visibility is a necessary precondition and enabler for sustainability design.
Manifesto Principle 7: Sustainability requires action on multiple levels.
principles Principle 8: Sustainability requires meeting the needs of future generations without compromising
the prosperity of the current generation.
Principle 9: Sustainability requires long-term thinking.
Requirements Functional Requirement
REQ 1 – Interactivity (users must be able to interact with the application)
The interface must be simple to catch the user’s attention.
Users can make actions on the interface with energy data and dynamically get eco feed-
back.
REQ 2 – Display Information
The users should be able to understand the displayed data and information.
Energy usage data and carbon emission information should be displayed to users in rela-
tion to road distance between LUT University in Lappeenranta and other cities within
Finland (this will provide a better understanding to users regarding their impact).
REQ 3 – Community (users must be able to share ideas on sustainability and advice to the user
community group)
Provide users with a sustainability challenge every week, dynamically based on energy
usage to help users develop a sense of belonging with the idea of sustainability beyond
the university. This can make them become more curious and choose to change their
habits.
Validation Engineers, developers and some end users validate these requirements with the best practice
criteria.
Impact Promote sustainability and sobriety awareness
Lessons Learnt 1. Test results from user interaction with the prototype design show users gain a sense of
pride if their advice and suggestions help reduce energy usage in the community section
2. The prototype test result also shows the best way to influence public behaviour is to pre-
sent energy and carbon emission information in relation to what users can easily relate
to, which can offer better understanding for the public about their impact on the envi-
ronment. This approach is why the equivalent of CO2 emission, based on energy data us-
age, has been presented in the form of distance between one city and another to explain
the impact on sustainability. This will encourage a change in users’ habits over time in-
stead of telling them to change their habits based on high energy usage data displays or
CO2 emissions.
Sustainability The requirements in this template cover the following:
Dimensions Social sustainability
Environmental sustainability
Individual sustainability
Contact Details mistrettatomjulien@gmail.com , devinez.alexandre@gmail.com
design based on the outcome from both case
V. STAKEHOLDERS’ FEEDBACK studies in Table IV and the software sustain-
The feedback from the stakeholders shows their interest in ability requirements template for case study
the KMSD principles for their system design, especially during 1 detailed in Table V.
requirement gathering. However, the challenge of understand- 2. What is the impact of KMSD principles on stakehold-
ing how to easily translate the KMSD principles into software ers during software requirements elicitation?
design due to lack of tools or examples, shows there is need for a. The main impact of the KMSD principles on
more research providing tool support on practical usage of the stakeholders is that at each phase of the
KMSD principles. This will further improve the usefulness of SDLC, sustainability became a core aspect
KMSD principles to other interested stakeholders in academia that was considered to improve the software
and industry. application in the two case studies. Also, the
According to the stakeholders in each of the case study, the KMSD principles brought some new aware-
software sustainability requirements template (see Table V) ness that there is a guiding principle that can
was useful as guide during requirement gathering because it support stakeholders during software re-
supports discussion about sustainability during requirement quirement and design. A typical example is
gathering and categorizing requirements to each sustainability in case study 2 (Table IV): Using the princi-
dimensions. ple 5,7, and 9 stakeholders were able to re-
Stakeholders also states that using the software sustainability think how to present the energy usage data in
requirements best practice documentation template (Table VI) a way that educates the university
over time will provides enough knowledge base to show how staff/students by showing the energy data in
KMSD principles have been applied in different software pro- the form of C02 emissions from one city to
jects. Knowledge from this kind of documentation can be re- another.
used by other stakeholders which can offer better sustainability b. In addition, the KMSD principles also
consideration during requirement engineering. pushed stakeholders to see each of the re-
quirements from different sustainability di-
VI. DISCUSSION mensions with the aid of the software sus-
The two case studies presented in the paper shows the inter- tainability requirements template, thereby
pretation of KMSD principles by stakeholders involve based on improving the overall evaluation of the soft-
their industry experience. Table IV presents the understanding ware applications in the two case studies.
from stakeholders on how the KMSD principles were applied Despite the applicability and some positive results from us-
the case study 1 and 2 from the Project Definition phase (Phase ing the KMSD in the two case studies, there is still the chal-
1) to Analysis and Design (Phase 4). The remaining SDLC lenge of little evaluation research and practical guidance on
phases that were not covered in Table IV was because at the using the KMSD in software requirement gathering and design.
time of writing this paper those information were not at our Currently the KMSD principles are presented as generic prin-
disposal from stakeholders. ciples to serve all possible stakeholders, which means the prin-
The following paragraphs summarize the answers to the re- ciples are at high level of abstraction. It becomes difficult for
search questions: novice stakeholder to properly understand how to use the prin-
1. How applicable are the KMSD principles during ciples without tangible practical examples of what and how to
software requirements gathering and design? implement these nine principles in software design.
a. The KMSD principle 2 (Sustainability has In order to increase the applicability of the KMSD princi-
multiple dimensions) was used as a guide ples, there is need to have more case studies and reporting on
during requirements gathering as seen in Ta- how these KMSD principles are applied for software design.
ble IV presenting both case studies in the us- This will improve stakeholders understanding of how the prin-
er requirements and system requirements ciples can be effective and efficiently used as guide during
definition phases. software design or enhancement.
b. Principles 1 to 9 of the KMSD were also ap- One of the major challenges from stakeholders is the prob-
plied from the project definition to analysis lem of understanding in what way the KMSD principles can be
and design phase of SDLC with sustainabil- related to their application because of a lack of examples that
ity consideration in each of the SDLC phases could assist them. Table II was used to map the KMSD princi-
by stakeholders. The KMSD principles aided ples to SDLC phases in order to lessen the problem of under-
by the software sustainability requirements standing by the stakeholders about which principles are appli-
template create a sense of practicability with cable to each SDLC phase.
regards to applying sustainability in software
VII. CONCLUSION sustainability with process- and product-specific instances,”
The Karlskrona Manifesto for Sustainability Design princi- in Proceedings of the 2013 Workshop on Green in Software
ples cover diverse aspects of sustainability to serve as a refer- Engineering, Green by Software Engineering, 2013, pp. 3–7.
ence point and guide during software design. Our findings pre- [10] B. Penzenstadler, M. Mahaux, and C. Salinesi, “RE4SuSy:
sented in this paper shows the benefits and challenges of using Requirements engineering for Sustainable systems,” Proc.
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