A Systematic Study to Improve the Requirements Engineering Process in the Domain of Global Software Development

Abdu Gumaei,Muhammad Azeem Akbar,Sajjad Mahmood,Ahmed Alsanad,Abeer Abdulaziz Alsanad

doi:10.1109/access.2020.2979468

Abstract

The software organizations are outsourcing their development activities across the geographical border due to huge business gains. However, the adoption of the global software development (GSD) paradigm is not straightforward; various challenges are associated with it, particularly related to the requirements engineering (RE) process. The objective of this study is to identify the barriers to the RE process faced during GSD. To achieve this, we have conducted a systematic mapping study and questionnaire survey to identify and validate the barriers of the RE process with industry practitioners. A total of 20 barriers were identified and validated with the experts. Moreover, we have performed organization types (client and vendor), organization size (small, medium, and large) and experts' levels (junior, intermediate, and senior) based analysis to provide a clear understanding of the RE barriers in the three different context. Besides, we have also developed a theoretical framework by mapping the investigated barriers into six core knowledge areas of software process improvement. The mapping results indicated that project administration is the most significant knowledge area of investigated barriers. We believe that the findings of this study will provide a framework that assists the GSD practitioners in developing an effective plan and strategies to improve the RE process in the GSD context.

Highlights

Requirements engineering (RE) is a significant phase of the software development life cycle (SDLC)
According to Niazi et al [9], the requirements engineering process is not standardized in the context of a geographically distributed environment
Due to the dispersed nature of development in the context of the global software development (GSD), the practitioners faced several problems, and they found that fluent communication is one of the major barriers [9], [15], [31]

Summary

Introduction

Requirements engineering (RE) is a significant phase of the software development life cycle (SDLC). Mellado et al [27] introduced a security requirements engineering process (SREP) We found another model based on the ‘‘common criteria (CC) (ISO/IEC 15408)’’. The model provides a standard-based framework that has an agreement with the requirements, security at the primary phases of software development is an iterative and systematic way by using a security resource repository (SRR), together with the combination of the common criteria (ISO/IEC 15408). This model is useful to address the barriers related with RE process with respect to the requirements security at initial phase of SDLC [18]. Various other studies are carried out to manage the challenges of the RE process [28]–[32]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion