High Perceived-Value Requirements Engineering Practices for Outsourced Software Projects

Abstract

This paper identifies high perceived-value requirements engineering (RE) practices specifically for outsourced software development projects. This is part of a study that aims to develop a framework for critical requirements engineering (RE) practices for outsourced software development projects. We used a survey questionnaire as the primary approach to collect data from 193 software development practitioners from 62 companies in Malaysia. The practitioners were asked to identify which RE practices, out of the 66 practices of Sommerville’s framework, are considered critical for outsourced projects. Specifically, the practitioners were asked to assess and categorize the practices into four categories: high, medium, low and zero value. Only two RE practices were assigned a ‘high value’ by the practitioners and another 26 practices were assigned a ‘medium’ value. The findings show that there is an increased awareness of the importance of RE practices among Malaysian practitioners because only a very low percentage of the respondents selected most of the practices as zeroor low-value practices. Secondly, all the 28 practices ranked as ‘high’ and ‘medium’ value practices are critical and should be given high emphasis in the outsourced projects. Moreover, due to the many more specific characteristics of outsourced projects, the study also implies that there is an urgent need to identify other RE practices or other related software engineering practices that are critical for outsourced projects but that have not been captured within Sommerville’s framework.