Software developers' perceptions of soft skills in software requirements engineering

Abstract

Software requirements express users' needs and constraints for a software system to be constructed in order to solve some real problems. Both researchers and practitioners from industry point out that well performed requirements related activities have very important role for successful realization of software projects. Software developers work on software requirements jointly with software users. Requirements elicitation and specification are especially important since they require software developers with multidisciplinary skills. These activities require not only technical skills but also non-technical or soft skills. This article presents a qualitative study with software developers aimed at inquiring how they perceive soft skills in software requirements activities. The study involved 14 software developers, who were interviewed. Data analysis, based on inductive thematic analysis, resulted in three themes that reflect software developers' perceptions about soft skills. The study findings revealed that software developers are aware of soft skills, recognize the need to improve them and understand their importance in everyday practice. Implications of the research findings for researchers, software developers and managers in software organizations are discussed.

Human factor in software requirements engineering: Preliminary review of qualitative empirical studies

“…However, due to its importance for the industrial practice, there is a need for more studies dealing with human factor in software engineering and especially in the field of requirements engineering [9], which is the most critical for the success of software projects [10] and future maintenance of software systems [11]. In addition, understanding human factor issues, or soft skills, by software engineers is essential for improving software requirements industrial practice [12]. Due to the complexity of software engineering, including technical, organizational and human issues, it is difficult to study practice by using only quantitative approaches (dominate in software engineering scientific literature), which indicates that deeper understanding of human performed practice requires qualitative approaches [13].…”