The agile principles applied to software engineering include iterative and incremental development, frequent releases of software, direct stakeholder involvement, minimal documentation and welcome changing requirements even late in the development cycle. The Agile Requirements Engineering applies the above mentioned principles to the Requirements Engineering process. Agile Requirements Engineering welcomes changing requirements even late in the development cycle. This is achieved by using the agile practice of evolutionary requirements which suggests that requirements should evolve over the course of many iterations rather than being gathered and specified upfront. Hence, changes to requirements even late in the development cycle can be accommodated easily. There is however, no real process to the agile approach to Requirements Engineering. In order to overcome this disadvantage, we propose to adapt the Requirements Generation Model (a plan-driven Requirements Engineering model) to an agile environment in order to structure the Agile Requirements Engineering process. The hybrid model named the Agile Requirements Generation Model is a soft-structured process that supports the intents of the agile approach. This model combines the best features of the Requirements Generation Model and Agile Software Development. / Master of Science

The agile manifesto has certainly changed the way software is produced in the Information Communications Technology (ICT) industry. However, many persistent challenges cripple agile software development. One challenge is that the constant change in technology makes the requirements hard to implement. Another is that issues of the agile requirements engineering (ARE) process are abundant and pervasive throughout software projects. The aim of this study is to determine common issues in agile requirements engineering in the South African software industry and identify tools and frameworks to mitigate risks emanating from such problems. This includes finding out how much value software practitioners put in the agile principles. This study was essentially quantitative, based on a cross-sectional survey. Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect required data which was then subjected to exploratory data analysis using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences), a tool for statistical analysis. The results show that software practitioners have a strong penchant for principles of the Agile Manifesto. Major issues in agile requirements engineering include lack of proper validation tools and techniques, scope problems, lack of proper documentation, issues of prioritisation, as well as unavailability of customer representative. A detailed baseline of issues in agile requirements engineering was created along with a set of recommended tools and techniques used in the software industry. As for the recommendation, it is suggested that companies invest more on validation tools and techniques and consider non-functional requirements integration during software development. / School of Computing / M. Sc. (Computing)

Kravhantering inom systemutveckling utgör basen för vad som ska utvecklas. Agila systemutvecklingsmetoder blir vanligare för varje dag som går. Det har dock ofta visat sig finnas utmaningar med hur man anpassar just kravhanteringen till de agila metoderna. Verksamheter har olika förutsättningar för att arbeta agilt. Lantmäteriet i Gävle uttryckte ett behov att undersöka varför den agila praxis man hade inte följdes av alla utvecklingsteam i samband med kravhanteringen. Syftet med denna uppsats var därför att undersöka varför vissa utvecklingteam i en verksamhet arbetade agilt med sin kravhantering medan vissa inte gjorde det. För att undersöka detta utförde jag en fallstudie där jag med hjälp av enkäter och intervjuer samlade in data från både utvecklare och personer på verksamhetssidan som var inblandade i kravhanteringen. Resultaten visade att orsakerna till att en agil kravhantering fungerade så olika var flera. Genom att använda en tematisk analys kunde jag urskilja några framträdande orsaker. Kommunikation och flexibilitet samt kunskap och förståelse för olika perspektiv var teman som utgjorde positiva faktorer. De teman som istället utgjorde negativa faktorer var bland andra otydliga roller, brist på direktiv, en övertro till metoder och processer, osynk mellan verksamhet och IT, prioriteringsproblem, förvaltningsplaner, attityder och IT-arkitektur. / Requirements engineering within software development is the foundation of what needs to be developed. Agile methods in software development become more common every day. It has however often been shown that there are certain challenges with how to adopt the requirements engineering to the agile methodology. Businesses have different preconditions for agile methods. Lantmäteriet in Gävle had a need to examine why not all the developing teams followed agile methods within the requirements engineering process. The purpose with this thesis was thus to examine why some developing teams in an organization worked in an agile manner with the requirements engineering, and some did not. To do this I performed a case study where I collected data through questionnaires and interviews from both developers and people from the business side. The results showed that the reasons for these differences were multiple. Communication and flexibility, and knowledge and understanding for different perspectives were the positive factors. The themes that hindered an agile way of working were, among others, unclear roles, lack of direction, too much reliance on methods and processes, discrepancy between business and IT, prioritizing issues, management plans, attitudes and IT architecture.