An Investigation into Requirements Volatility using Systems Dynamics Modelling - The Design of a Requirements Engineering Research Tool

Abstract

A project aims to deliver a system, product or service that satisfies the needs and desires of an end user. A large body of research exists in the field of requirements engineering, which reviews the problem of eliciting and implementing the actual requirements for a given situation. Despite all the research conducted to date, requirements remain a key challenge within the delivery of a project, product or service. The challenges in the requirements engineering domain can be traced to several factors, including that the requirements engineering domain is a complex socio-technical system. This complexity makes research in this field difficult since it is not possible to set up research experiments if the researcher is not involved and if the experiment cannot repeatedly produce the same outcome. A research approach is thus required that evaluates and researches the requirements engineering process from within the context it occurs. This approach allows the researcher to gain an increased understanding of the requirements engineering process with the aim of improving it. This thesis proposes the design of a requirements engineering research tool by following a design science research methodology. The tool can be used by researchers and requirements engineering practitioners as an investigative artefact for researching the requirements engineering domain. This thesis makes the following unique, novel and consequential contributions to the scientific and academic body of knowledge: 1. Unique, primary research contribution a. The development and the application of an elicitation-diffusion model for use in requirements engineering. b. The research methodology and method presented is not only applicable to the requirements engineering domain but also the larger complex research domain as well as the complex socio-technical research domain. 2. Novel research contribution a. The application of a design science research methodology in the field of requirements engineering. b. The enhancement of the design cycle as used in the design science research methodology with relevant elements from the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Systems Engineering Handbook. c. The definition of the object-of-study when designing a research tool to include the original artefact and problem context as the new problem context. d. The application of Soft Systems Methodology to the design of a research tool. 3. Consequential research contribution a. The use of the structure of a causal loop diagram to identify the contributing factors to observed phenomena in the requirements engineering domain.