Progress in the derivation of use cases and system requirements for the new Fiware4Water applications

The development of the new FIWARE applications in the four demo cases was initiated within the framework of WP1, and specifically in Task 1.1. The ultimate target of this initial step is the identification of the key functionalities and requirements of the newly developed FIWARE applications. Towards this, a process was designed to support and facilitate the derivation, collection and record of the appropriate information in a standardised way at all demo cases.

The process is based on the concept of user stories and use cases that allow the description of the functionalities of the system from user’s perspective or, in other words, what the user (utility) want to achieve with the system. The process was evolved through three workshops organized in each demo case between the local research partners and local utilities.

These workshops aimed to explore:1)    What are the challenges that utilities want to address with the new FIWARE applications and tools?2)    What is the current state of play of the legacy systems (existing datasets, sensors, SCADA systems, protocols etc.) and how we can take advantage of them to facilitate the development of new tools? 3)    What are the desired functionalities of utilities for the new applications and tools to have?4)    What new sensors and systems should be deployed to enable the development and operation of new tools?

The first series of workshops was initiated the process and collected the major user stories from the Utilities (EYDAP, 3S, WNT and SWS), providing answers to the above questions and giving to the local research partner a clear picture of the key functionalities of the systems to be developed. The collected list of user stories was re-evaluated by the local partners and each use story was further broken down into specific use cases to provide a more detailed description of the functionalities. The lists of user stories and use cases was further evaluated and revisited during the second workshop in each demo case. Based on the derive user stories, the research partners identified and compiled the list of system requirements for each FIWARE application. The key task of the third workshop was the presentation of the final set of user stories, use cases and system requirements to the utility to ensure a consensus.

The information gathered during these workshops informs directly the next steps of the project which focus on the development, deployment and testing of the new FIWARE applications in the four demo cases. The results will be published early 2020 as part of the Deliverables.

Author NTUA