Requirements Engineering in Global Software Development: A Survey Study from the Perspectives of Stakeholders

Abstract

Global software development (GSD), where software teams are located in different parts of the world, has become increasingly popular. However, GSD involves issues such as geographical distance, cultural diversities, differences in time zones, and language barriers amongst stakeholders, making it different from collocated software development, and requirements engineering (RE) is very much affected by these issues. To examine what stakeholders think about the impact of these factors on the different activities of RE in a GSD environment, we have conducted a survey among organizations located in different parts of the world which were involved in GSD. In this paper, we present the findings of the survey. The survey pointed to the facts that stakeholders are not very aware of the risks and challenges associated with GSD, that stakeholders are not clear about how the geographical dispersion of development teams could affect the RE process, and that the lack of RE methods for GSD makes stakeholders use the conventional techniques and approaches of RE that do not consider the factors involved in GSD. The findings of our study will enable readers to gain a better understanding of what different groups of stakeholders think about RE in GSD.

A Systematic Study to Improve the Requirements Engineering Process in the Domain of Global Software Development

“…According to Niazi et al [9], the requirements engineering process is not standardized in the context of a geographically distributed environment. However, due to the dispersed nature of development in the context of the GSD, the practitioners faced several problems, and they found that fluent communication is one of the major barriers [9], [15], [31]. Niazi et al [9] indicated that the majority of the organizations that carried their development activities across the globe followed an informal RE process.…”

“…Shafiq et al [5] and Thanasankit [4] highlighted the importance of standards and procedures for the RE process while adopting a software outsourcing paradigm. Various barriers are associated with software outsourcing, particularly that related to the requirements engineering process [15], [30]. A study conducted by Khan et al [38] indicated that the barriers of the RE process are the root causes of project failure.…”

“…Besides this, the software organizations also faced many challenges while outsourcing their development activities in GSD sites [12], [14]. RE process is considered more challenging in the GSD paradigm as it includes more communication and collaboration activities [12], [14], [15]. The physical distance between the development teams and client organizations make the requirements engineering process more challenging [12], [16].…”

“…In spite of the significance of RE in SDLC, the RE process is not standardized yet in the context of GSD [9], [18], [19]. Very few empirical studies were conducted to explore the barriers of the RE process in the domain of GSD [15], [20], [21]. We believe that a better understanding of barriers helpful in tackling the problems of the RE process in the GSD environment.…”

Prioritization of global software requirements' engineering barriers: An analytical hierarchy process

“…Significant work has been conducted to understand RE in the GSD [15][16][17]. However, no work has been carried out that identifies barriers that influence the RE process in GSD projects.…”