Could Participation Support Sustainability in Requirements engineering ? Martin Mahaux PReCISE, NaGRIDD, University of Namur, Belgium martin.mahaux@unamur.be Abstract—Many disciplines see a paradigm shift towards more The research question is: Would an increase in the level of participative processes. Requirements Engineering is a participation in RE processes lead to more sustainable systems? collaboratively creative process, so it entails stakeholder To bring a tentative answer to this question, we explore some participation to a certain level. But how far should stakeholders other disciplines where participation is discussed. be involved? Would more participation result in more sustainable systems? We draw on some studies from other II. MORE AND MORE PARTICIPATION disciplines to indicate that participation has indeed potential to support sustainability, if some obstacles can be handled Virtually any discipline is seeing a participative trend appropriately. growing. Health is perhaps an interesting one, where the Index Terms—Participation, Sustainability, Requirements almighty power of the specialist is slowly leaving space to Engineering.1 online health forums, where experiences are shared, and advices come from all directions. More formal forms of I. INTRODUCTION participative health processes are carefully studied by Participation refers to the involvement of several researchers [2]. Learning is no longer in the hands of teachers stakeholders in the process of doing something. As RE is a [3], and universities have to now count with the competition of collaboratively creative process [1], participation is always online co-learning platforms [4], let alone the ultra-famous present, in a more or less direct way. The question is thus not collaborative knowledge platforms such as Wikipedia. whether or not to use participation, but rather it is to decide on Journalism has been strongly challenged by social networks, who will participate (how many different stake areas will be micro-blogging platforms and online media, changing the represented in the various discussions), how pa@rticipation paradigm from broadcast to multi-directional discussion [5]. will be facilitated (directly or indirectly via an analyst), how far Crowd-funding has also made media more independent from participants will be allowed to influence decisions (from bare private funding agencies, bringing participation to the next consultation to real decision making), and on what matter(s) level in this discipline [6]. In design, participation is well participation will be allowed (low level details, high level known, especially in Nordic countries [7]. In engineering, the objectives, or everything that’s in-between). most famous examples probably belong to open source We may define “participative RE processes” as those where software development, and more recently the success of agile stakeholders from various areas of stakes are expected to methods also shows the interest in participation. But hardware actively work together to discover, validate, document or is also seeing open source striking, with the first open source analyze requirements elements. A process is considered more cars arriving on roads [8], [9]. Participative policy making is participative if more people from more stake areas are also breathing fresh air into our democracies around the world involved, if they interact in a more direct way with each other, [10], [11], [12]. Finally, social development projects have since if their potential influence on decisions is bigger, and if they some time now been involving local communities in the are allowed to influence on more topics. For example, an decision making process, for example allowing them to analyst interviewing stakeholders at the start of a project and participate in environmental assessment [13], or in designing then not referring back to them before the go-live is on the projects such as schools, garbage collection, river management lower scale of participation. Agile processes with scrum schemes, and the like [14], [15]. meetings every morning and client demonstration every week III. DOES PARTICIPATION LEAD TO SUSTAINABILTY ? are certainly higher. Using participative design techniques (as creative workshops) with final users and several experts will The studies and experiments related to in the section above, also raise the level of participation of an RE process. along with the experience that the author has as a facilitator of participative processes in RE, lead us to think that, indeed, Copyright © 2013 for the individual papers by the papers' participation has a strong potential to lead to more sustainable authors. Copying permitted only for private and academic systems. However, this will not be automatic, and many purposes. This volume is published and copyrighted by its obstacles have to be mitigated. We develop below an initial editors. argumentation, building on studies in the social development and journalism domains. A. Promises democratic and transparent cultures and infrastructures were in Firstly, it is worth to note that in social development place around the project, the participation failed to bear its projects, participation is seen as being a component of promises [14]. Participative processes are indeed vulnerable to sustainable development [15]. In this discipline, participation malfunctioning environments. There is sometimes a huge work has been seen as a way to empower people, consequently to accomplish before the environment is ready for participation. leading to a better control on their own lives in the long term The failure described above draws this conclusion, along with [14]. A similar pattern exists when, in a company, participative failures in participative journalism: Goode indicates that people innovation is fostered, leading to empowerment and more and systems, including software running at major crowd-media satisfaction [16]. In short, we can say that successful platforms, have to make their way [5]. Strong facilitation may participation means empowerment, which obviously supports compensate for imperfect environments, to a certain extent. In social sustainability. a recent work [1], we have studied all factors that influence the Empowering people also relates to democracy, and effectiveness of groups in collaboratively creative efforts. This participation efforts in this sector have shown that sustainable work indeed indicates that people have to make their way, development indeed needs participation [10]. Both in Africa including facilitators of such processes, and all participants. and in Belgium, participation is shown to work well and to Where the culture is focused on the individual, on fighting for relate to sustainable decision making from involved citizens one’s own ideas, on competition, such as in many companies, [14], [15]. Those works also indicate that projects using there are indeed some precautions to take when starting successful participation have a better acceptance rate, last participation initiatives. longer and consequently have a stronger impact. This relates to Another common concern is about the quality of work that sustainability in that projects that are not accepted or short- can be achieved by amateurs participating, and the place that lived represent an important waste of resources and energy. professional, or experts, should take in the process. The In Belgium, cases illustrate how participation allows example of online medical forums is probably making this deconstruction and creative reconstruction of problem frames, problem clear. Bypassing doctors and doing auto-diagnostic by allowing circulation of the problem in various dimensions and auto-medication online can potentially be extremely and spaces. Participation helps to open up the solution space dangerous. Similarly, information relayed by micro-blogging and let us come to richer solutions that cope with more platforms, escaping the journalistic validation, have the objectives and constraints, including sustainability constraints potential to convey wrong information at a dangerously rapid that were sometimes out of the initial scope, before the rate [5]. Consequently, participation must not be seen as participation [15]. Doelle and Sinclair also advocate that a excluding professionals and experts from the process, but as consensus making form of participation will be more efficient reinventing the relation between them and the and lead to more sustainable outcomes than an a-posteriori public/user/audience. This relation cannot be unidirectional assessment one [13]. Journalism also indicates promises from anymore, but places experts and pro’s at the centre of a participation, imagining the discipline as a conversation rather discussion: they have to act as facilitators, consultant, than broadcasting [6], nurturing better democracy. People are validators. For example, the participative policy making effort ready to participatively fund independent journals, and are led in Belgium had invited experts from the academy and shown to do so for contributing to common good and social industry to present state of the art and answer questions in the change [5]. In all these cases, however, specific actions have to various areas of expertise that the 1000 selected citizens would be taken in order to mitigate some obstacles that we describe discuss. The process was managed professionally, and below. employed trained facilitators [11]. Journalists using Twitter feeds and cross-checking information are another example. B. Obstacles and Possible Mitigations Finally, we underline that, if participation is to lead to more It is clear that participation is not automatically a success. sustainability, beyond the positive social aspect of empowering Real participative processes may be rich, but always cost time, people, we need participants who care about sustainability. The and are not always possible or even desirable. The first various cases of urban development in Belgium showed that problem with participative processes concerns the possibility involving a greater public did brought environmental concerns for the participation to be controlled by a certain type of to the front while some of these aspects had been neglected by people, more skilled or culturally stronger. The idea that experts. In general, participation relies on strong stakeholders participation is a discussion forum without rules must thus be analysis, which we have been used to in Requirements rejected, at the risk of seeing the stronger impose its opinions Engineering. In the case of sustainable systems design, we need by influencing others in a way or another [15]. Lyons et al. to ensure that some stakeholders will stand up for sustainability indicate experiences where participation failed for such reasons concerns [17]. [14]. But even if there is no such strong person or group, the risk IV. CONCLUSION of seeing participants fighting for their own personal, local, Participation has the potential to lead to more sustainable short-term interests exists. In these circumstances, the process systems, mainly by empowering participants and by offering will be inefficient and lead nowhere. Lyons et al. also show the possibility to creatively use a diversity of points of view to such examples in African development projects: where no build more adequate systems, and systems that respect more sustainability constraints. Indeed, the involvement of more [6] T. Aitamurto, ‘The Impact of Crowdfunding on Journalism’, stakeholders tends to bring more sustainability concerns to the Journal. Pr., vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 429–445, 2011. front than when experts only analyzed situations. [7] ‘PIN-C 2013 - Lahti, Finland on 18-20 June 2013 - www.lut.fi’. [Online]. Available: However, such processes are vulnerable to environments http://www.lut.fi/web/en/pin-c-2013. [Accessed: 16-Apr- and people and, sometimes, important work is needed before 2013]. participation can be a success. Facilitation will be needed too, [8] ‘Local Motors’. [Online]. Available: http://localmotors.com/. this is the new role of experts and professionals, changing their [Accessed: 03-May-2013]. relation to the users/public/audience. [9] ‘OScar - Reinvent Mobility - Home’. [Online]. Available: Important questions also remain to be answered, such as http://www.theoscarproject.org/. [Accessed: 03-May-2013]. how should one select stakeholders so that together they will [10] M. Reuchamps, ‘Le G1000’, 2011. [Online]. Available: emphasize all important sustainability aspects to account for in http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/handle/2268/142718. [Accessed: 03-May- a system; or, how many stakeholders should one draw from a 2013]. [11] ‘G1000  : Platform for democratic innovation’. [Online]. particular community to be sure that sustainability will be Available: http://www.g1000.org/en/. [Accessed: 03-May- covered during requirement elicitation? 2013]. [12] ‘Welcome to Participedia | Participedia’. [Online]. Available: http://www.participedia.net/. [Accessed: 03-May-2013]. V. REFERENCES [13] M. Doelle and A. J. Sinclair, ‘Time for a new approach to public participation in EA: Promoting cooperation and [1] M. Mahaux, O. Gotel, K. Schmid, A. Mavin, L. Nguyen, and consensus for sustainability’, Environ. Impact Assess. Rev., M. Luisa, ‘Collaborative Creativity in Requirements vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 185–205, Mar. 2006. Engineering: Analysis and Practical Advice.’, in Proc. 7th int. [14] M. Lyons, C. Smuts, and A. Stephens, ‘Participation, IEEE conf. on Research Challenges in Information Science, Empowerment and Sustainability: (How) Do the Links Paris, France, 2013. Work?’, Urban Stud., vol. 38, no. 8, pp. 1233–1251, Jan. [2] S. Gendron, ‘La pratique participative en santé publique  : 2001. l’émergence d’un paradigme’, 2002. [15] M. Mormont, Catherine Mougenot, and C. Dasnoy, ‘La [3] T. B. Tsien and M. Tsui, ‘A participative learning and participation composante du développement durable  : quatre teaching model: the partnership of students and teachers in études de cas’, Vertigo - Rev. Électronique En Sci. Environ., practice teaching’, Soc. Work Educ., vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 348– no. Volume 7 Numéro 2, Sep. 2006. 358, 2007. [16] ‘Etude sur l’innovation participative 2011’. [Online]. [4] ‘Co-Learning’. [Online]. Available: http://www.co- Available: http://www.innovacteurs.asso.fr/?page_id=29. learning.com/. [Accessed: 03-May-2013]. [Accessed: 10-Jan-2012]. [5] L. Goode, ‘Social news, citizen journalism and democracy’, [17] B. Penzenstadler, Femmer, Henning, and Richardson, Debra, New Media Soc., vol. 11, no. 8, pp. 1287–1305, 2009. ‘Who Is the Advocate? Stakeholders for Sustainability’, in . From Social Development Projects (and other domains) To Requirements Engineering: Will More Participation lead to More Sustainable Systems ? Martin Mahaux martin.mahaux@unamur.be Participation is about Stakeholders involvment (of course!) Few Represented Stake Areas Many Few, Indirect Interactions Many, Direct Low High Influence on decisions Small Large Low Participation Scope of participation High Participation RE is a collaboratively creative process, so participation is required at The world is some point. But how far should we take it ? And how does that impact sustainability ? experiencing more Health and more Online health forums are countless. People Policy Making …from studies and experiments participation... help each other and take active role in Voting is not enough. Citizen's deliberations and panels reinvent the way in those fields, we learn that sustaining their health and their peers ones citizens can help politicians Journalism Twitter and online get out of the dead ends... participation can lead to Learning & medias, as well as media crowd funding is changing the game. Development Knowledge more sustainability... Journalism becomes a Projects Anyone can now offer bidirectional Local communities are conversation... courses on anything via People are empowered, so more happy, as invited to take active roles development projects that online learning platforms. Knowledge is built Engineering they have more control over their lives / their work. affect them: schools, While well known in IT, collaboratively via wikis. open source is also The democracy is revived by this empowerment. garbage management and permeating hardware: the like are more and more the first open source Participation opens up solution designed by all cars are coming!. spaces, entailing consensus making out of a large spectrum of points of view, allowing for a richer and more informed decision making process. Conflicts are used for nurturing creative problem solving. … if obstacles can be mitigated. Consequently, developed solutions match more needs and constraints from more people, including social and environmental concerns, Will this be restricted to a certain elite, more Specific facilitation is required to enable a fairly as far as these matter to stakeholders at large. skilled or able to influence others ? distributed network of influence. Developed solutions are more accepted in Can this process live in any The environment has to be that people feel more connected to these. Being environment? People, structures, cultures are specifically set up for participation. involved in design is stronger then answering an not necessarily ready for this kind of reasoning... Where culture is not adequate, participation will indeed interview or giving a vote. fail and there is thus an important challenge here. But People will fight for their interest where examples of adequate adaptation exist. In this cases People learn from these processes, and local, personal and short term concerns might take people show unexpected ability to put collective become better at collaborative creativity. Leading to over collective interest and long term challenges challenges above personal ones. Then if the right better participation. stakeholders are there (including sustainability such as sustainability ? stakeholders), challenges can be efficiently handled V. REFERENCES [10] ‘G1000!: Platform for democratic innovation’. [Online]. with participation. Available: http://www.g1000.org/en/. [Accessed: 03-May- Will amateurs take over experts and pro's alike, and [1] S. Gendron, ‘La pratique participative en santé publique!: [11] 2013]. ‘Welcome to Participedia | Participedia’. [Online]. Available: l’émergence d’un paradigme’, 2002. http://www.participedia.net/. [Accessed: 03-May-2013]. still be able to produce quality work? Participation does not mean excluding [2] T. B. Tsien and M. Tsui, ‘A participative learning and teaching model: the partnership of students and teachers in practice teaching’, Soc. Work Educ., vol. 26, no. 4, pp. 348– [12] M. Doelle and A. J. Sinclair, ‘Time for a new approach to public participation in EA: Promoting cooperation and consensus for sustainability’, Environ. Impact Assess. Rev., experts or professionals. Their role changes from [3] 358, 2007. ‘Co-Learning’. [Online]. Available: learning.com/. [Accessed: 03-May-2013]. http://www.co- [13] vol. 26, no. 2, pp. 185–205, Mar. 2006. M. Lyons, C. Smuts, and A. Stephens, ‘Participation, Empowerment and Sustainability: (How) Do the Links deciding to facilitating, validating sometimes. They are [4] L. Goode, ‘Social news, citizen journalism and democracy’, New Media Soc., vol. 11, no. 8, pp. 1287–1305, 2009. Work?’, Urban Stud., vol. 38, no. 8, pp. 1233–1251, Jan. 2001. [5] T. Aitamurto, ‘The Impact of Crowdfunding on Journalism’, either facilitators or one more voice. The interaction Journal. Pr., vol. 5, no. 4, pp. 429–445, 2011. [14] M. Mormont, Catherine Mougenot, and C. Dasnoy, ‘La participation composante du développement durable!: quatre [6] ‘PIN-C 2013 - Lahti, Finland on 18-20 June 2013 - études de cas’, Vertigo - Rev. Électronique En Sci. Environ., between pros and amateurs changes. www.lut.fi’. [Online]. Available: http://www.lut.fi/web/en/pin-c-2013. [Accessed: 16-Apr- no. Volume 7 Numéro 2, Sep. 2006. [15] ‘Etude sur l’innovation participative 2011’. [Online]. 2013]. Available: http://www.innovacteurs.asso.fr/?page_id=29. [7] ‘Local Motors’. [Online]. Available: http://localmotors.com/. [Accessed: 10-Jan-2012]. [Accessed: 03-May-2013]. [16] M. Mahaux, O. Gotel, K. Schmid, A. Mavin, L. Nguyen, and [8] ‘OScar - Reinvent Mobility - Home’. [Online]. Available: M. Luisa, ‘Collaborative Creativity in Requirements http://www.theoscarproject.org/. [Accessed: 03-May-2013]. Engineering: Analysis and Practical Advice.’, in Proc. 7th int. [9] M. Reuchamps, ‘Le G1000’, 2011. [Online]. Available: IEEE conf. on Research Challenges in Information Science, http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/handle/2268/142718. [Accessed: 03-May- Paris, France, 2013. 2013]. [17] B. Penzenstadler, Femmer, Henning, and Richardson, Debra, ‘Who Is the Advocate? Stakeholders for Sustainability’, in . Wallonie and Europe invest in your future!