Requirements Determination Process Research Articles

An Inductive-ROC Based Model for Determining Purchasing System Requirements

The success of system development studies depends on the completeness and accuracy of the requirements collected from system user and stakeholders. Mistakes and deficiencies in the requirements determination process lie in the failure of many system development studies. The dynamism and complexity of today's systems make the requirements determination process even more complicated, and the requirement determination phase, which is the primary stage of system development studies, gains excellent importance. Although there are many techniques, strategies, and models in the literature to improve the requirements Determination process, there are very few studies on their multiple-use, classification of needs, and their experimental realization in a real system. In this study, a system development study was carried out using the System Requirements Model (SRM), which has a flexible structure that allows the system needs to be determined with the use of multiple techniques, at the same time classifies the identified requirements, can decide on the determination levels, and allows the work to be stopped if a sufficient level of needs is determined The developed model consists of three stages: requirement identification, rulemaking/technical/needs matrix creation and classification of needs. In the needs determination process, collection, presentation, verification, and sort of needs. In the second stage of the model, an analogy was made, and the needs and techniques were grouped with the ROC algorithm, and the rule-based RULES-3 algorithm was used to universalize the model. In the third stage of the model, needs were determined based on technical/technical combinations.

Investigating illusions of agreement in group requirements determination

The success of information systems development efforts hinges largely on eliciting accurate requirements from users and other stakeholders. Requirements determination is difficult due to the complexity of the systems to be built, analysts’ and users’ cognitive and motivational challenges, and the highly politicized nature of many development efforts. The present research addresses a problem that arises from users’ motivations during the requirements determination process. Most past studies have focused on explicit conflicts that arise between systems analysts, users, and other organizational stakeholders. The present research is concerned instead with the opposite problem—illusions of agreement between participants in the systems development environment. Our study investigates a type of illusion of agreement known as the Abilene Paradox in requirements determination. The Abilene Paradox refers to situations in which each member of a group believes (incorrectly) that the other group members want to pursue a particular course of action, which leads everyone to avoid conflict by agreeing to the action publicly while disagreeing privately. We first provide theory underlying the paradox and review past literature. We then build theory to motivate our investigation and generate hypotheses. We then report results of a laboratory experiment utilizing group requirements determination efforts. Results indicated behavior consistent with the presence of the paradox and an illusion of agreement. These results have important implications for research and practice in requirements determination specifically and systems development in general. Our results contribute to both the requirements determination literature and the literature on illusions of agreement and social conformity.

Requirements Determination as a Social Practice: Perceptions and Preferences of Novice Analysts

—At its core, Requirements Determination (RD) is fundamentally a collaborative social practice that involves multiple stakeholders who must work together to communicate, discuss and finally confirm the requirements for the system to be implemented or updated. With a potentially large number of (groups of) stakeholders involved, each with their own perspective on the system as well as their own level of understanding, the form and nature of communication in the RD process are worth investigating and improving, particularly given the impact of RD on other stages of software development, operation, and support. The many human interfaces associated with RD can lead to a variety of communication challenges, including miscommunication between users and analysts and misunderstandings between analysts and developers, all of which can add time and cost to software projects. In this paper we report on our use of the Communicative Adaptability Scale (CAS) questionnaire to assess the communicative competence of 45 novice analysts in social interaction. Through the questionnaire we have investigated the perceptions of analysts regarding the most effective channels through which to receive and send relevant RD information. Analysis leads us to confirm that first, face-to-face communication is the channel that our novice analysts prefer to employ in order to communicate with users during RD. Second, our novice analysts consider themselves to have the ability and desire to communicate in novel social contexts. The outcome of these experiences is the development and refinement of a social communication repertoire. Third, and less positively, our novice analysts consider themselves to have a lesser ability to engage in conversations with others who were not known previously. Furthermore, our analysis shows that our novice analysts perceive themselves to have limited competence to clearly express their ideas. Specifically, our analysts believe they have limited competence in word choice, pronunciation, and grammatical structure to express their ideas in a manner appropriate to the social context. Preferred channels of communication are confirmed, but their utility will be moderated by analysts’ ability to interact in social settings. Additional training in communication skills, particularly articulation, may be of particular benefit to novice analysts.

Towards a B2B E-Commerce Evaluation Management Model to Assess Organizational Drivers in Hospitals

Effective utilization of business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce (e-commerce) in hospitals may lead to many benefits such as increased accessibility to healthcare providers, improved process efficiency, enhanced quality of healthcare services, increased responses to changes, decreased scheduling conflicts, and reduction in administrative costs. However, many hospitals have found that they have not yet fully reaped the expected benefits from their B2B e-commerce investments. Despite this, there has not been much discussion in the literature with respect to the relationship between the organizational drivers on B2B e-commerce benefits for hospitals. Hence, a mixed-method of case study and survey was conducted to examine the relationships between B2B e-commerce benefits, IT evaluation resources allocation, IT investment evaluation methodologies, IT maturity, and user information requirements determination process. A B2B e-commerce evaluation management model was developed to test these relationships. The results provided empirical evidence in support of our proposed model and revealed that hospitals’ IT evaluation resources allocation practices mediated the relationship of IT investment evaluation methodologies, IT maturity, and user information requirements determination process with B2B e-commerce benefits. The results also showed that the level of IT maturity had a significant impact on the adoption of IT investment evaluation methodologies.

Requirements determination for common systems: turning a global vision into a local reality

A ‘common’ information system is one that is intended to satisfy the needs of multiple user groups within a firm for a particular functionality (e.g. one order entry system to be used by all divisions of a global firm). Such systems are often comprised of both core (or common) software modules, as well as local modules to support regional requirements. One of the most significant challenges for any information systems (IS) project is determining information requirements. The requirements determination process is especially difficult in this context in which common, global requirements must be forged from disparate, and potentially conflicting, local needs and priorities. This paper reports on case studies of two projects undertaken to globally deploy common systems, and it develops a model of the requirements determination process. The proposed model posits stakeholders engage in knowledge acquisition and negotiation processes in order to determine global requirements as well as to foster consensus and buy-in, on the part of the local regional stakeholders, to the global system. The findings also suggest that knowledge acquisition is a relatively structured, rational approach to learning about local needs and requirements, where stakeholders share an awareness of the corporate vision for global standards and agree on the need for a new system. Negotiation, in contrast, is less structured and more political, with different parties lobbying for their own interests as they endeavor to identify common requirements for the new global system. Finally, the results suggest that the requirements determination process is influenced by an articulated corporate vision for a global system, needs and priorities of the local regions, and the organizational roles and skills of key stakeholders. Implications of the results are drawn and suggestions for future research are offered.

A User-Oriented Model of Factors that Affect Information Requirements Determination Process Quality

This paper discusses a study by the author to identify factors that affect the process quality of the information requirements determination (IRD) process from a user perspective. A nominal group process was used with three groups of users that have had experience with the IRD process. The results indicate there is a set of factors that users agree impact the quality of the IRD process. A total of 33 factors were identified as critical to IRD process quality. This study should benefit IT users, IT professionals, project managers, and IT researchers. The factors identified may be used to develop metrics to be used to monitor the IRD process or measure its success or quality. For IT researchers, this study offers two primary contributions: 1) identification of the critical factors suggests that there are many variables that have not received attention, and 2) an example of an approach to generate potential variables for further study.

Technology Frames and Framing: A Socio-Cognitive Investigation of Requirements Determination

Requirements determination (RD) during information systems delivery (ISD) is a complex organizational endeavor, involving political, sensemaking, and communicative processes. This research draws on the analytic concept of technology frames of reference to develop a socio-cognitive process model of how frames and shifts in frame salience influence sensemaking during requirements determination. The model provides a theoretical and conceptual perspective that deepens our understanding of requirements processes in organizations and of the socio-cognitive basis of power in ISD. The paper reports on a longitudinal case study, in which four technology frame domains were identified and the influence of frames on project participants' understanding of requirements was traced through eight RD episodes. Repeated shifts in the salience of the business value of IT and IT delivery strategies frames disrupted project participants' understanding of requirements and contributed to a turbulent RD process. Analysis of frames and framing helped explain how interpretive power was exercised, yet constrained, in this project. Implications for further research and for practice are considered.

Improving information requirements determination: a cognitive perspective

Requirements determination is a critical phase of information systems development, but much evidence suggests that the process can and should be improved. Because the bulk of requirements determination occurs early in the development of a system, improvements can yield significant benefits for the entire systems development process. This paper first discusses a three-stage descriptive model of the requirements determination process. Four classes of difficulties in determining systems requirements are then used to organize and describe particular problems that occur within each stage of the process, together with the cognitive and behavioral theories that underlie them. The paper then describes techniques that can address the problems and presents theoretical considerations that analysts can use in applying the techniques to improve requirements determination.

Requirements Determination: An Information Systems Specialist Perspective of Process Quality

An empirical study was performed to identify, elucidate and judge factors that affect the quality of the information requirements determination process. These quality factors were determined using a series of nominal group processes involving information systems specialists from various organisations and projects. The results indicate that there exists a set of factors that IS specialists from different organisations and with different systems experience agree upon as being critical to ensuring the quality of the requirements determination process, and that these factors appear to fall into six categories: IS specialist factors, user factors, project team factors, project factors, application factors and environmental/organisational factors.