Enhancement of requirements review process and creation of specific validation criteria using design science research methodology / Siti Osnita Mokhtar

Requirements review has been widely acknowledged as one of the validation techniques used in many software development projects which aims to ensure the feasibility of the software requirements specification. A reliable software system relies heavily on the quality of its software requirements. Poor quality of requirements causes unnecessary additional effort to fix the errors which eventually increases the project budget and delays the project implementation. Even though, requirements review has been recognized as a widely practiced validation technique in many organizations, practitioners are still encountering multiple obstacles related to unclear review scope, lack of preparation and difficulty in finding defects in lengthy specifications. These obstacles have hindered the project team from achieving the requirements review goal. Based on the reviewed literatures, several deficiencies have been observed, mainly on the lack of a standard review process, insufficient review guidelines and generic validation criteria. The aim of this study is to provide a standard guidance, in the form of a process-oriented framework, to facilitate defect identification activity of software requirements specification for business application. The study adopted the six-stage of Design Science Research Methodology (DSRM) : (1) identify problem and motivate, (2) define objectives of a solution, (3) design and development, (4) demonstration, (5) evaluation and (6) communication. This research work placed great emphasis on the applicability of the research outcome within the business organizational context. Due to the nature of the research topic, several methods were employed such as literature review, case study and expert judgement. The research activities were undertaken based on the ‘problem-centered initiation’ and later segregated into two phases : requirements review process and validation criteria. The research findings revealed the establishment of a requirements review process-oriented framework and formation of a specific validation criteria to guide the reviewer team in conducting defect identification of software requirements for business applications. The framework which comprises of guidelines and a standard review process, is an extension of previous research works related to requirements review process. While the validation criteria is a new contribution to the requirements engineering body of knowledge. The utilization of the framework and validation criteria during the case studies had shown positive outcomes when the practitioners were able to apply both artifacts in their software projects. The involvement of the panel of experts from seven organizations had also given better insights to the utilization of the framework within several industries. The expert judgement sessions were fruitful when a total of 16 recommendations were suggested by the practitioners to further improve the framework and another 23 recommendations for the validation criteria. Future research project may consider evaluating each of these recommendations in their scope of study. The uniqueness of this study exists in the fact that, positive collaboration efforts were obtained with the industry practitioners using real-world software projects. These experts have vast software development experience in various industries, which complements their constructive feedback in providing better insights to the outcomes of this research study. Following this research study, the validation criteria were adopted by two organizations to be used in their future requirements review activities. This positive outcome has further supported the applicability and the importance of the research study for industry practice.