Combining perceptions and prescriptions in requirements engineering process assessment : an industrial case study

dc.contributor.authorNapier, Nannette P.
dc.contributor.authorMathiassen, Lars
dc.contributor.authorJohnson, Roy D.
dc.contributor.emailroy@up.ac.zaen
dc.date.accessioned2010-03-18T10:45:21Z
dc.date.available2010-03-18T10:45:21Z
dc.date.issued2009-10
dc.description.abstractRequirements engineering (RE) is a key discipline in software development and several methods are available to help assess and improve RE processes. However, these methods rely on prescriptive models of RE; they do not, like other disciplines within software engineering, draw directly on stakeholder perceptions and subjective judgments. Given this backdrop, we present an empirical study in RE process assessment. Our aim was to investigate how stakeholder perceptions and process prescriptions can be combined during assessments to effectively inform RE process improvement. We first describe existing methods for RE process assessment and the role played by stakeholder perceptions and subjective judgments in the software engineering and management literature. We then present a method that combines perceptions and prescriptions in RE assessments together with an industrial case study in which the method was applied and evaluated over a three-year period at TelSoft. The data suggest that the combined method led to a comprehensive and rich assessment and it helped TelSoft consider RE as an important and integral part of the broader engineering context. This, in turn, led to improvements that combined plan-driven and adaptive principles for RE. Overall, the combined method helped TelSoft move from Level 1 to Level 2 in RE maturity, and the employees perceived the resulting engineering practices to be improved. Based on these results, we suggest that software managers and researchers combine stakeholder perceptions and process prescriptions as one way to effectively balance the specificity, comparability, and accuracy of software process assessments.en
dc.identifier.citationNapier, NP, Mathiassen, L & Johnson RD 2009, 'Combining perceptions and prescriptions in requirements engineering process assessment : an industrial case study', IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, vol. 35, no. 5, pp. 593-606. [http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=32]en
dc.identifier.issn0098-5589
dc.identifier.other10.1109/TSE.2009.33
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/13568
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineersen
dc.rights©2009 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.en
dc.subjectProcess implementation and changeen
dc.subjectQualitative process analysisen
dc.subjectRequirements engineering processen
dc.subjectSoftware managementen
dc.subjectSoftware processen
dc.subject.lcshComputer software -- Developmenten
dc.subject.lcshSoftware engineeringen
dc.titleCombining perceptions and prescriptions in requirements engineering process assessment : an industrial case studyen
dc.typeArticleen

Files

Original bundle

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name:
Napier_Combining(2009).pdf
Size:
2.72 MB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Article

License bundle

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Loading...
Thumbnail Image
Name:
license.txt
Size:
2.44 KB
Format:
Item-specific license agreed upon to submission
Description: