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The state-of-practice in requirements elicitation: an extended interview study at 12 companies

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Abstract

Requirements engineering remains a discipline that is faced with a large number of challenges, including the implementation of a requirements elicitation process in industry. Although several proposals have been suggested by researchers and academics, little is known of the practices that are actually followed in industry. Our objective is to investigate the state-of-practice with respect to requirements elicitation, by closely examining practitioners’ current practices. To this aim, we focus on the techniques that are used in industry, the roles that requirements elicitation involves, and the challenges that the requirements elicitation process is faced with. As method, we conducted an interview-based survey study involving 24 practitioners from 12 different Swedish IT companies, and we recorded the interviews and analyzed these recordings by using quantitative and qualitative methods. Several results emerged from the studies. Group interaction techniques, including meetings and workshops, are the most popular type of elicitation techniques that are employed by the practitioners, except in the case of small projects. Additionally, practitioners tend to use a variety of elicitation techniques in each project. We noted that customers are frequently involved in the elicitation process, except in the case of market-driven organizations. Technical staff (for example, developers and architects) are more frequently involved in the elicitation process compared to the involvement of business or strategic staff. Finally, we identified a number of challenges with respect to stakeholders. These challenges include difficulties in understanding and prioritizing their needs. Further, it was noted that requirements instability (i.e., caused by changing needs or priorities) was a predominant challenge. These observations need to be interpreted in the context of the study. We conclude that the relevant observations regarding the survey participants’ experiences should be of interest to the industry; experiences that should be analyzed in the practitioners’ context. Researchers may find evidence for the use of academic results in practice, thereby inspiring future theoretical work, as well as further empirical studies in the same area.

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Notes

  1. http://www.re-survey.org/

  2. http://atlasti.com/.

  3. This is the notation that is used in this article to refer to the interview subjects. The notation corresponds to Sx(y), where Sx is a unique identifying number for the interview subject (referring to Table 7 in Appendix 1), y is the identifying number assigned to the interview subject’s company (referring to Table 8 in Appendix 1). Each subject talked in the interview about different projects, even in the case of subjects working in the same company. Therefore, the project referred by subject Sx is identified as Px (referring to Table 9 in Appendix 1).

  4. Note that both interview subjects work for the same company, a public transport administration.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by the GENESIS project, funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación under project TIN2016-79269-R, and the Horizon 2020 project OpenReq, supported by the European Union under Grant Nr. 732463.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Software and Service Engineering Group (GESSI), Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

    Cristina Palomares, Xavier Franch, Carme Quer & Lidia López

  2. Department of Informatics, School of Business, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden

    Panagiota Chatzipetrou

  3. Software Research Engineering Lab (SERL), Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden

    Tony Gorschek

Authors
  1. Cristina Palomares
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  2. Xavier Franch
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  3. Carme Quer
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  4. Panagiota Chatzipetrou
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  6. Tony Gorschek
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Correspondence to Carme Quer.

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Appendices

Appendix I: Description of population

See Table 7, 8 and 9

Table 7 Subjects included in the empirical study
Full size table
Table 8 Companies included in the empirical study
Full size table
Table 9 Projects included in the empirical study
Full size table

Appendix II: Interview Code Relationships

This appendix contains a summary of the categories of the answers that were provided by each respondent in the interview-based empirical study presented in this paper. The discussion and the findings are based on the data provided in this appendix. By providing the following tables, the reader will be able to verify the discussion and the findings of the study and assess whether there are other potential relationships that are not related to the research question addressed. The first column shows the respondent’s code and the subsequent columns show the coded categories (introduced and detailed in Sect. 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4) that each respondent mentioned.

Abbreviations used in the table

BA:

Analyst (Business Analyst)

BT:

Business Team

CC:

Customer of customer

CCS:

Challenges related to commu-nicating and Sharing a unified view

CEP:

Challenges related to the Elicitation Process

CI:

Consultant (Internal)

CoS:

Consultant (Specialist)CP: Customer Proxy (invited customer)

CPE:

Challenges related to Predict the Evolution of the system

CR:

Customer (Requester)

CS:

Challenges related to Stakeholders

CSR:

Challenges related to Stable Requirements

DK:

Do not Know

DST:

Developer / development team / Scrum Team

FO:

Function Owner

GIT:

Group Interaction Techniques

GT:

Generic (Technician / Technical team)

ID:

Interaction Designer

IPT:

Isolation Participation Techniques

MS:

Market Research

MU:

Market Unit

NC:

No Challenge

OET:

Other Elicitation Techniques

ONS:

Organization (Not Specified)

PEU:

Potential End-User

PM:

Project Manager

PO:

Product Owner

REU:

Real End-User

RBS:

Reading-Based Techniques

SA:

Software Architect

SLE:

System/Lead Engineer

SP:

Service Provider (carrier)

TSM:

Technical/System Manager

WE:

Web Editor

ID Subject

RQ1

RQ2

RQ3

S1

GIT, IPT

BA, CR, DST

NC

S2

GIT

BA, CR, DST, WE

CEP, CSR, CS

S3

GIT, IPT, RBS, OET

CP, PEU,

CEP

S4

GIT

BA, CR, ONS

NC

S5

GIT, RBS

CR, ONS, SP

CS

S6

GIT, IPT

CR, MU, TSM

CSR, CS

S7

DK

CR, ONS

CCS

S8

GIT, IPT

CC, CR, ONS

CEP, CS

S9

GIT, IPT

BT, CI, CR

CCS, CPE, CS

S10

GIT, MS

MU, REU

CCS, CSR

S11

GIT, IPT

CI, GT, ID, REU

CS

S12

GIT, IPT

BA, CI, MU, SP

CSR, CS

S13

IPT, RBS

BA, CR, SA

CCS, CEP, CSR

S14

GIT, RBS

MU, SLE

CSR

S15

IPT

CR, PM

CSR, CS

S16

GIT, MS

DST, ONS

CSR

S17

IPT, RBS

CR, ONS

CS

S18

GIT, MS

FO, GT

CSR, CS

S19

GIT, OET

GT, SLE

CSR, CS

S20

GIT, OET

ONS

CEP, CS

S21

GIT, MS

CR, ONS, PO

CEP, CSR, CS

S22

GIT, RBS

CR, DST

CCS, CSR

S23

GIT, RBS

BA, CoS, CR, PEU,

CPE

S24

GIT, OET

BA, CoS, CR, GT, TSM

CSR

Appendix III: Relevant statistical correlation values

This Appendix contains the relevant correlations that were found in our statistical analysis. For each correlation, we show the p-value and the Cramer’s V value. The correlations are organized by RQ.

RQ

Correlation item 1

Correlation item 2

p-value

Cramer’s V value

RQ1

Project managers

Group interaction techniques

0.022

0.466

Software architects

Group interaction techniques

0.022

0.466

Consultants

Individual participation techniques

0.028

0.447

Product owners

Market research

0.022

0.466

Function owners

Market research

0.022

0.466

Challenge of instability of requirements

Market research

0.044

0.411

Project number of employees

Individual participation techniques

0.038

0.592

Project costs

Other elicitation techniques

0.017

0.650

RQ2

Subjects with requirements-related job position

Involvement of customers in elicitation process

0.016

0.655

Projects costs

Involvement of external consultants in elicitation process

0.012

0.674

Project domain

Involvement of external consultants in elicitation process

0.000

1.000

Project methodology

Involvement of real end-users in elicitation process

0.037

0.426

Years working in the organization

Involvement of generic technical roles in elicitation process

0.022

0.466

Years working in their current position

Involvement of generic technical roles in elicitation process

0.035

0.529

Years working in the organization

Involvement of the organization in elicitation process

0.044

0.581

Involvement of analysts in elicitation process

Involvement of external consultants in elicitation process

0.021

0.470

Challenges related to stable requirements

Involvement of market units in elicitation process

0.044

0.411

Challenges related to stable requirements

Involvement of the organization in elicitation process

0.043

0.414

RQ3

Highest educational background

Challenges related to predict the evolution of the system

0.028

0.723

Years working in the organization

Challenges related to the elicitation process

0.029

0.613

Project domain

Challenges related to communicating and sharing a unified view

0.010

0.793

Project methodology

Challenges related to stakeholders

0.043

0.414

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Palomares, C., Franch, X., Quer, C. et al. The state-of-practice in requirements elicitation: an extended interview study at 12 companies. Requirements Eng 26, 273–299 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00766-020-00345-x

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