The Influence of Human Aspects on Requirements Engineering-related Activities: Software Practitioners’ Perspective

Abstract

Requirements Engineering (RE)-related activities require high collaboration between various roles in software engineering (SE), such as requirements engineers, stakeholders, developers, and so on. Their demographics, views, understanding of technologies, working styles, communication and collaboration capabilities make RE highly human-dependent. Identifying how “human aspects” —such as motivation, domain knowledge, communication skills, personality, emotions, culture, and so on—might impact RE-related activities would help us improve RE and SE in general. This study aims at better understanding current industry perspectives on the influence of human aspects on RE-related activities, specifically focusing on motivation and personality, by targeting software practitioners involved in RE-related activities. Our findings indicate that software practitioners consider motivation, domain knowledge, attitude, communication skills and personality as highly important human aspects when involved in RE-related activities. A set of factors were identified as software practitioners’ key motivational factors when involved in RE-related activities, along with important personality characteristics to have when involved in RE. We also identified factors that made individuals less effective when involved in RE-related activities and obtained some feedback on measuring individuals’ performance when involved in RE. The findings from our study suggest various areas needing more investigation, and we summarise a set of key recommendations for further research.