The state-of-practice in requirements elicitation: an extended interview study at 12 companies

Requirements engineering remains a discipline that is faced with a large number of challenges, including the implementation of a requirements elicitation process in industry. Although several proposals have been suggested by researchers and academics, little is known of the practices that are actual...

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Autores: Palomares Bonache, Cristina|||0000-0003-4722-5584, Franch Gutiérrez, Javier|||0000-0001-9733-8830, Quer, Carme|||0000-0002-9000-6371, Chatzipetrou, Panagiota, López Cuesta, Lidia|||0000-0002-6901-9223, Gorschek, Tony
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2021
País:España
Institución:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
Repositorio:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/337045
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/2117/337045
https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00766-020-00345-x
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Requirements engineering
Requirements elicitation
Empirical studies
Interviews
Enginyeria de requisits
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Enginyeria del software
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spelling The state-of-practice in requirements elicitation: an extended interview study at 12 companiesPalomares Bonache, Cristina|||0000-0003-4722-5584Franch Gutiérrez, Javier|||0000-0001-9733-8830Quer, Carme|||0000-0002-9000-6371Chatzipetrou, PanagiotaLópez Cuesta, Lidia|||0000-0002-6901-9223Gorschek, TonyRequirements engineeringRequirements elicitationEmpirical studiesInterviewsEnginyeria de requisitsÀrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Enginyeria del softwareRequirements engineering remains a discipline that is faced with a large number of challenges, including the implementation of a requirements elicitation process in industry. Although several proposals have been suggested by researchers and academics, little is known of the practices that are actually followed in industry. Our objective is to investigate the state-of-practice with respect to requirements elicitation, by closely examining practitioners’ current practices. To this aim, we focus on the techniques that are used in industry, the roles that requirements elicitation involves, and the challenges that the requirements elicitation process is faced with. As method, we conducted an interview-based survey study involving 24 practitioners from 12 different Swedish IT companies, and we recorded the interviews and analyzed these recordings by using quantitative and qualitative methods. Several results emerged from the studies. Group interaction techniques, including meetings and workshops, are the most popular type of elicitation techniques that are employed by the practitioners, except in the case of small projects. Additionally, practitioners tend to use a variety of elicitation techniques in each project. We noted that customers are frequently involved in the elicitation process, except in the case of market-driven organizations. Technical staff (for example, developers and architects) are more frequently involved in the elicitation process compared to the involvement of business or strategic staff. Finally, we identified a number of challenges with respect to stakeholders. These challenges include difficulties in understanding and prioritizing their needs. Further, it was noted that requirements instability (i.e., caused by changing needs or priorities) was a predominant challenge. These observations need to be interpreted in the context of the study. We conclude that the relevant observations regarding the survey participants’ experiences should be of interest to the industry; experiences that should be analyzed in the practitioners’ context. Researchers may find evidence for the use of academic results in practice, thereby inspiring future theoretical work, as well as further empirical studies in the same area.This work has been supported by the GENESIS project, funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación under project TIN2016-79269-R, and the Horizon 2020 project OpenReq, supported by the European Union under Grant Nr. 732463.Peer Reviewed20212021-06-0120212021-02-08journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501AMhttp://purl.org/coar/version/c_ab4af688f83e57aainfo:eu-repo/semantics/articleapplication/pdfhttps://hdl.handle.net/2117/337045https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00766-020-00345-xreponame:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPCinstname:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)InglésengEuropean Commission http://doi.org/10.13039/100010661 Horizon 2020 Framework Programme 732463 Intelligent Recommendation Decision Technologies for Community-Driven Requirements Engineeringopen accesshttp://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessoai:upcommons.upc.edu:2117/3370452026-05-27T15:37:01Z
dc.title.none.fl_str_mv The state-of-practice in requirements elicitation: an extended interview study at 12 companies
title The state-of-practice in requirements elicitation: an extended interview study at 12 companies
spellingShingle The state-of-practice in requirements elicitation: an extended interview study at 12 companies
Palomares Bonache, Cristina|||0000-0003-4722-5584
Requirements engineering
Requirements elicitation
Empirical studies
Interviews
Enginyeria de requisits
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Enginyeria del software
title_short The state-of-practice in requirements elicitation: an extended interview study at 12 companies
title_full The state-of-practice in requirements elicitation: an extended interview study at 12 companies
title_fullStr The state-of-practice in requirements elicitation: an extended interview study at 12 companies
title_full_unstemmed The state-of-practice in requirements elicitation: an extended interview study at 12 companies
title_sort The state-of-practice in requirements elicitation: an extended interview study at 12 companies
dc.creator.none.fl_str_mv Palomares Bonache, Cristina|||0000-0003-4722-5584
Franch Gutiérrez, Javier|||0000-0001-9733-8830
Quer, Carme|||0000-0002-9000-6371
Chatzipetrou, Panagiota
López Cuesta, Lidia|||0000-0002-6901-9223
Gorschek, Tony
author Palomares Bonache, Cristina|||0000-0003-4722-5584
author_facet Palomares Bonache, Cristina|||0000-0003-4722-5584
Franch Gutiérrez, Javier|||0000-0001-9733-8830
Quer, Carme|||0000-0002-9000-6371
Chatzipetrou, Panagiota
López Cuesta, Lidia|||0000-0002-6901-9223
Gorschek, Tony
author_role author
author2 Franch Gutiérrez, Javier|||0000-0001-9733-8830
Quer, Carme|||0000-0002-9000-6371
Chatzipetrou, Panagiota
López Cuesta, Lidia|||0000-0002-6901-9223
Gorschek, Tony
author2_role author
author
author
author
author
dc.subject.none.fl_str_mv Requirements engineering
Requirements elicitation
Empirical studies
Interviews
Enginyeria de requisits
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Enginyeria del software
topic Requirements engineering
Requirements elicitation
Empirical studies
Interviews
Enginyeria de requisits
Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Informàtica::Enginyeria del software
description Requirements engineering remains a discipline that is faced with a large number of challenges, including the implementation of a requirements elicitation process in industry. Although several proposals have been suggested by researchers and academics, little is known of the practices that are actually followed in industry. Our objective is to investigate the state-of-practice with respect to requirements elicitation, by closely examining practitioners’ current practices. To this aim, we focus on the techniques that are used in industry, the roles that requirements elicitation involves, and the challenges that the requirements elicitation process is faced with. As method, we conducted an interview-based survey study involving 24 practitioners from 12 different Swedish IT companies, and we recorded the interviews and analyzed these recordings by using quantitative and qualitative methods. Several results emerged from the studies. Group interaction techniques, including meetings and workshops, are the most popular type of elicitation techniques that are employed by the practitioners, except in the case of small projects. Additionally, practitioners tend to use a variety of elicitation techniques in each project. We noted that customers are frequently involved in the elicitation process, except in the case of market-driven organizations. Technical staff (for example, developers and architects) are more frequently involved in the elicitation process compared to the involvement of business or strategic staff. Finally, we identified a number of challenges with respect to stakeholders. These challenges include difficulties in understanding and prioritizing their needs. Further, it was noted that requirements instability (i.e., caused by changing needs or priorities) was a predominant challenge. These observations need to be interpreted in the context of the study. We conclude that the relevant observations regarding the survey participants’ experiences should be of interest to the industry; experiences that should be analyzed in the practitioners’ context. Researchers may find evidence for the use of academic results in practice, thereby inspiring future theoretical work, as well as further empirical studies in the same area.
publishDate 2021
dc.date.none.fl_str_mv 2021
2021-06-01
2021
2021-02-08
dc.type.none.fl_str_mv journal article
http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501
AM
http://purl.org/coar/version/c_ab4af688f83e57aa
dc.type.openaire.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/article
format article
dc.identifier.none.fl_str_mv https://hdl.handle.net/2117/337045
https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00766-020-00345-x
url https://hdl.handle.net/2117/337045
https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00766-020-00345-x
dc.language.none.fl_str_mv Inglés
eng
language_invalid_str_mv Inglés
language eng
dc.relation.none.fl_str_mv European Commission http://doi.org/10.13039/100010661 Horizon 2020 Framework Programme 732463 Intelligent Recommendation Decision Technologies for Community-Driven Requirements Engineering
dc.rights.none.fl_str_mv open access
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
dc.rights.openaire.fl_str_mv info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
rights_invalid_str_mv open access
http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_abf2
eu_rights_str_mv openAccess
dc.format.none.fl_str_mv application/pdf
dc.source.none.fl_str_mv reponame:UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
instname:Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
instname_str Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC)
reponame_str UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
collection UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC
repository.name.fl_str_mv
repository.mail.fl_str_mv
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