Quality Requirement Documentation Guidelines for Agile Software Development

Abstract

In agile software development (ASD), where minimal documentation and rapid delivery are the focus, Quality requirements (QRs) are often underspecified and not documented. Guidelines supporting QR documentation task are scarce. The study developed the Agile QR-Doc QR documentation guidelines, which aim to support QR documentation in ASD. We applied a design science research methodology (DSRM) to build the Agile QR-Doc. We used a survey questionnaire and open discussion with ten software practitioners, from two ASD companies to validate the Agile QR-Doc. The practitioners evaluated the guidelines in terms of usefulness, relevance, understandability, and coverage of important aspects for supporting QR documentation and their impact on the agility of the software development process. Agile QR-Doc list 12 recommendations that are grouped into two categories. The first category introduces three recommendations that focus on raising awareness about the significance of QRs, their documentation and related challenges. The second category lists nine recommendations that introduce artifacts, practices and important aspects for documenting QRs. The validation reveals the relevance, understandability and usefulness of the guidelines to support QR documentation in ASD. It also indicates that the guidelines consider important aspects for documenting QRs and that they do not negatively affect the agility of the software development process. Practitioners can utilize the practices, artifacts and knowledge from the guidelines to support QR documentation in ASD. Researchers can benefit from the knowledge on QR documentation in ASD, and application of DSRM in building artifacts.