A Process model for software requirements engineering

Abstract

Knowledge about computers and the software requirements negotiation process is needed as a basic skill in order to survive in today’s information based society. This research report contains a comprehensive and literal report through exploitation of the software engineering process that can be used in the requirements negotiation process. Most software projects have been unsuccessful because their requirements were poorly negotiated among stakeholders. Consequently, many requirements negotiation models have been reported in literature. Some of these models can successfully support general requirements negotiation. However, they only give the procedure of the requirements negotiation process, without taking into account the issues of problem identification and problem solving. This research looked at various methodologies used in the Requirements Engineering (RE), which involved requirements negotiation. A process model (A Decision Support Process Model) was developed basing on the Win-Win negotiation model artifacts in order to prioritize customer requirements since prioritization of requirements is a major problem in the RE process. The Requirements Decision Support Tool, which will help Software Engineers, was also developed, tested and validated based on the objectives that were set. The Challenges encountered included delay in feedback from the stakeholders where by the stakeholders involved may take some time before responding and therefore slow down the RE process. To minimize on this delay, should be constant reminders send to the stakeholders involved to give their feedback. Future researchers in this field should be aware of conflicts among stakeholders which is usually the major set back therefore to solve this problem, a tradeoff analysis methodology was used.