Understanding Requirements through Filtering, Negotiating and Shifting

Päivi Ovaska (South Carelia Polytechnic, Finland)

Matti Rossi (Helsinki School of Economics, Finland)

Kari Smolander (Lappeenranta University of Technology, Finland)

Abstract: Traditional requirement engineering approaches pay little attention to how the requirements are interpreted and shared by different parties in an organization. Our study suggests that requirement shaping during a project can be described as a process where attitudes and expectations are filtered, shifted and negotiated repeatedly. We studied a large e-commerce platform development project and observed that preconceptions, attitudes and expectations about systems development among project participants filtered the understanding of software requirements, negotiating between project participants resolved the issues caused by filtering and shifts in these attitudes and expectations facilitated changes in the understanding of requirements. The study provides a new interpretation of how technology is collectively interpreted in organizations.

Keywords: requirements engineering, requirements understanding, socio-cognitive processes

Categories: D.2.1, K.6.1