Considerations for Effective Requirements Analysis in Offshore Software Development Projects: Lessons from Multi-Method Research

Abstract

Abstract:Offshore software development using geographically distributed teams is an accepted practice in software development today. However, software development companies have largely only offshored the software development lifecycle's coding and testing phases. However, lately, offshoring the requirements analysis (RA) phase has become increasingly viable for several reasons including the software industry's maturation and improved communication technologies. However, successfully evaluating this highly interactive phase between geographically dispersed client and provider teams requires special considerations. In this paper, we present practical insights garnered from conducting experiments and surveys of IS professionals from the Indian software industry and from extensively examining the literature. Our findings confirm that, subject to certain best practices, one can effectively conduct RA in software projects offshore. We present these practices as lessons learned and provide related recommendations for industry and academia.

Success factors analysis for requirement elicitation in global software development paradigm: An empirical study

“…This corresponds to 4.44% from the total extracted studies. References 10,12,13,18,27–92 are the final articles selected, while the QA scores assigned to each paper is shown in Appendix .…”

Quality Requirement Change Management’s Challenges: An Exploratory Study Using SLR

“…As team members are scattered, there is always an absence of trust among team members [74]. Hence, trust must be made for requirement success [75]. To answer RQ1 the list of challenges is underscored in Table 2.…”

“…To achieve this goal, there should be a focus on bringing internal and external changes to the system. Without bringing change in a system due to changes in the surrounding, an organization becomes rigid [3]. Requirements are continuously changing for handling a variety of challenges like inaccurate growth in requirement process, requirements not counted, technologies not growing, unforeseen complications, vital fluctuations, out-of-place stakeholders, unduly positive budget or schedule, border not sufficiently well-defined, variations in customers' wishes and wills and the life cycle of product development not touched in a better way [3].…”

“…The business team who prepare business quality products face challenges in the shape of communication issues, material management, different time zone, and cultural dissimilarities [3]. Despite it, it has its rewards on project success while VOLUME XX, 2017 facilitating communication, different time zones, and cultural hurdles [16].…”

Role of Critical Success Factors in Offshore Quality Requirement Change Management Using SLR

“…Agile process handles process requirement changes at any stage of software product development process [54]. This factor is used in improving communication among vendor organizations [55]. Another important success factor called low labor cost plays an important role in quality requirement change management.…”