Antecedents for Successful Collaboration in Requirements Engineering
📝 Abstract
The main focus of the requirements engineering (RE) literature has been on the technical aspects related to the RE projects. Furthermore, research has mainly focused on the specific methods for collecting the requirements for an information system. To fill this gap, this paper studies the contribution of social factors, such as social ties, knowledge sharing and flexibility, to successful collaboration in RE teams. Data were collected from a successful RE and development project in a public sector company in Finland. The results suggest that human-related issues, such as flexibility and transactive memory, were important for collaborative work in the RE team studied. The paper concludes by discussing the implications for theory and suggesting practical guidelines to enhance collaborative work in RE teams.
💡 Analysis
The main focus of the requirements engineering (RE) literature has been on the technical aspects related to the RE projects. Furthermore, research has mainly focused on the specific methods for collecting the requirements for an information system. To fill this gap, this paper studies the contribution of social factors, such as social ties, knowledge sharing and flexibility, to successful collaboration in RE teams. Data were collected from a successful RE and development project in a public sector company in Finland. The results suggest that human-related issues, such as flexibility and transactive memory, were important for collaborative work in the RE team studied. The paper concludes by discussing the implications for theory and suggesting practical guidelines to enhance collaborative work in RE teams.
📄 Content
Australasian Conference on Information Systems
Paavola & Hal 2015, Adelaide
Successful col
1
Antecedents for Successful Collaboration in
Requirements Engineering
Risto Paavola
Aalto University School of Economics
Helsinki, Finland
Email: risto.paavola@gmail.com
Petri Hallikainen
The University of Sydney Business School
Sydney, Australia
Email: petri.hallikainen@sydney.edu.au
Abstract
The main focus of the requirements engineering (RE) literature has been on the technical aspects
related to the RE projects. Furthermore, research has mainly focused on the specific methods for
collecting the requirements for an information system. To fill this gap, this paper studies the
contribution of social factors, such as social ties, knowledge sharing and flexibility, to successful
collaboration in RE teams. Data were collected from a successful RE and development project in a
public sector company in Finland. The results suggest that human-related issues, such as flexibility
and transactive memory, were important for collaborative work in the RE team studied. The paper
concludes by discussing the implications for theory and suggesting practical guidelines to enhance
collaborative work in RE teams.
Keywords
Requirements engineering, social ties, knowledge sharing, and successful collaboration.
1 Introduction
The most critical part of information systems development (ISD) process is requirements engineering
(RE) (e.g. Schenk et al. 1998). A significant portion of ISD failures are attributed to incomplete and
inaccurate information requirements (Byrd et al. 1992, Vessey and Conger 1993, Watson and Frolick
1993, Wetherbe 1991). Incorrect requirements cause cost and schedule overruns in ISD projects
(Vessey and Conger 1994). It is crucial to conduct as complete as possible requirements for an
information system since the cost of modifying the software after implementation or at a later stage in
the development process is considerably higher than that of making changes earlier in the
development process (Shemer 1987).
RE is not, however, an easy task. It has been acknowledged in the literature that RE is an iterative
learning process (e.g. Majchrzak et al 2005, and Xu and Balasubramaniam 2007). Starting with high
level requirements the RE process proceeds to more and more detailed requirements. In this process
unexpected problems, such as issues related to technology or business processes, are likely to occur.
Because RE is essentially iterative and a learning process, it is not possible to foresee all the potential
issues, nor is it possible to determine early in the process the individuals needed to solve those issues.
Against this backdrop, we propose that the interaction between people who influence and are
influenced by the RE process is crucial to achieve success.
The existing literature is rather silent about the social interaction related to the RE processes and the
role of the social network in the RE process. Earlier research has acknowledged that the knowledge
and experience of the team members is important for RE (Liou and Chen 1993). Aspects, such as team
creativity, communication, motivation and individual skills of the team members have also been
discussed in the existing literature (Tiwana and McLean 2005). However, in the present research we
submit that we should focus the attention beyond the RE team and to the wider social network.
There is a rather large body of literature on the formal techniques and methods for RE. Some of the
techniques developed include: asking and deriving from existing information system, strategy set
transformation, decision analysis, socio-technical analysis, interrogatories technique, and a semantic
questioning scheme (Ackoff 1967, Appan and Browne 2012, Bostrom and Heinen 1977/1, Bostrom and
Heinen 1977/2, and King 1978). Formal methods presented in the literature included, for example,
analyst driven requirement engineering, and collaborative requirement engineering (e.g. JAD).
Australasian Conference on Information Systems
Paavola & Hal 2015, Adelaide
Successful col
2 Although it is acknowledged that stakeholder collaboration is essential for RE, we have not found literature focusing on the informal social interaction within the RE process. The objective of the present research is to investigate the social ties and knowledge sharing in the social network within an RE process and how they affect successful collaboration in the RE process. We draw from the model for successful collaboration in virtual teams by Kotlarsky and Oshri (2005) to form the theoretical foundation for our study. Although their model was tested in a slightly different context, we propose that knowledge sharing and social ties are relevant factors also in the context of RE. A case study where all the relevant participants in the RE process were interviewed is presented in this paper. The results show that particularly trans
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