Argument structures are commonly used to develop and present cases for safety, security and other properties. Such argument structures tend to grow excessively. To deal with this problem, appropriate methods of their assessment are required. Two objectives are of particular interest: (1) systematic and explicit assessment of the compelling power of an argument, and (2) communication of the result of such an assessment to relevant...

Structured arguments based on evidence are used in many domains, including systems engineering, quality assurance and standards conformance. Development, maintenance and assessment of such arguments is addressed by TRUST-IT methodology outlined in this paper. The effective usage of TRUST-IT requires an adequate tool support. We present a platform of software services, called NOR-STA, available in the Internet, supporting key activities...

In recent years a plan-driven approach traditionally used in safety-critical software development has been put to a test by rapidly changing technologies, more diverse group of clients and volatile market requirements. The need to deliver good quality systems, faster and at lower cost in comparison to competitors encouraged companies to look for more efficient solutions. Agile methodologies are known to successfully address these...

In this paper we present AgileSafe - a method which supports introduction of agile practices into safety-critical software development processes. To represent safety assurance constraints resulting from the regulatory context, AgileSafe uses assurance case patterns. The knowledge base of AgileSafe helps the user to select the agile practices relevant for the considered software development project. The corresponding assurance case...

Argument structures are commonly used to develop and present cases for safety, security and for other properties of systems. Such structures tend to grow excessively, which causes problems with their review and assessment. Two issues are of particular interest: (1) systematic and explicit assessment of the compelling power of an argument, and (2) communication of the result of such an assessment to relevant recipients. The paper...