Identification and Prioritization of Agile Requirements Change Management Success Factors in the Domain of Global Software Development

Abstract

The economic and strategic gains motivated the majority of software firms to adopt global software development (GSD). The adoption of GSD is not straightforward. The geographical distance between the GSD teams causes the various problems for the implementation of agile software development activities, particularly, that related to requirements change management in agile (ARCM). The objective of this study is to explore the success factors of ARCM in GSD context and prioritized them based on their significance. The study comprised of two steps: (1) identify the success factors of ARCM using systematic mapping study (SMS) and validate them with industry practitioners using questionnaire survey approach; (2) prioritize the identified success factors by applying the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) approach. A total of 21 success factors that are significant for ARCM process were identified using SMS and questionnaire survey study. The results of AHP shows that allocation of resources at overseas sites, 3C's (communication, coordination and control), geographically distributed change control board (CCB), RCM process improvement expertise and continuous top management support are the highest priority success factors of ARCM process in the context of GSD. The findings assist the practitioners to address the most priority success factors in order to successfully implement the ARCM activities in the domain of GSD.INDEX TERMS Global software development (GSD), agile requirements change management (ARCM), analytical hierarchy process (AHP), success factors.

Factors influencing the requirements engineering process in offshore software development outsourcing environments

“…One possible threat towards the validity of this paper is that, due to the limited time and resources, the sample size of the survey questionnaire ( n = 123) might not be strong enough to justify the validity of the reported factors. However, based on different other existing studies [33, 35, 65, 66 ], this is a representative sample to justify the results and discussion of this study.…”

Requirement Engineering Challenges in Agile Software Development

“…is model also supports global software development for measuring and improving ARCMRM. Kamal et al [92] identified 21 key success and progress factor of ARCM, and the findings and results show that they are beneficial for practitioners for management of change in global software development context. Moreover, use automated techniques and tools to manage requirement issues, i.e., JIRA and RE-KOMBINE [40,71,87].…”

“…Tacit knowledge [73] Direct communication, observation, surveys, interviews, and the three factors: domain expert, communication process, and audience will help [40] Changing requirements [6,16,40,71,75] Use agile requirement change management readiness model (ARCMRM) [91], adopt 21 progress and success factors of ARCM [92], automated techniques, and tools to manage the requirement issues, i.e., JIRA and RE-KOMBINE [40,71,87] Requirement prioritization [74,77] Four stages based frame has been proposed [93] Negligence of nonfunctional requirements [40] Simulation tool NORMATIC for NFRs modeling [67], planning and visualization procedure, [94], NFR elicitation process [95] Complex software development projects such as supply chain management having unstable and uncertain requirement Long duration of RE due to complex decision making process, difficulty in creating and maintaining requirement priority list…”

A Study on Mitigating the Communication and Coordination Challenges During Requirements Change Management in Global Software Development

“…There were multiple challenges highlighted that are associated with the software requirements including (i) Am-biguous requirements, (ii) Poor requirements definition, (iii) Requirements prioritization, (iv) Requirements changes, (v) Requirements traceability, (vi) Technical solutions, (vii) Requirements verification and validation, and (viii) Project management. Kamal et al [39] reported 21 success factors in agile RCM in GSD. The authors reported that human resource management is an important factor that affects communication and coordination in GSD.…”