Groupware Support for Requirements Management in New Product Development

An Information Systems Design Theory for Integrated Requirements and Release Management Systems

“…They are introduced by revising a framework of Salo and Käkölä [48]. The framework considered meta-requirements in relation to three categories of services that RMS have to offer: (1) communication, (2) control and (3) change.…”

“…For example, highly mature requirements and release management processes can leverage much more detailed (quantitative) information than immature processes. RRMS must incorporate and represent requirement-and release-related information in granularity levels that are useful for different process contexts and roles [48].…”

“…According to the ISDT, RRMS instances should include at least these structures and attributes to be effective. Table 3 presents the generic structure of Requirement and Customer Requirement by revising and elaborating on the work of Salo & Käkölä [48]. Next, each class within the structure is presented.…”

“…Salo and Käkölä [48] found that groupware-based requirements management systems (RMS) need to be designed and used to redesign and enact the earliest phases of product development effectively in multi-site, cross-functional organizations. They developed an ISDT for RMS in order (1) to facilitate endogenous theory development in the context of RMS research, (2) to help RMS designers build successful RM systems, and (3) to guide organizations in evaluating and deploying RMS.…”

“…Salo and Käkölä [48] found that the benefits afforded by RMS were hampered if the RMS instances prescribed by the ISDT were not integrated with systems used in the downstream phases in order to provide transparent end-toend support throughout the product development lifecycle. For example, customer representatives responsible for entering requirements could not use RMS to follow-up if and when the requirements would be implemented, lowering their interests in entering the requirements.…”