M.Ing. (Engineering Management) / Requirements engineering forms an integral part of software engineering. The purpose of requirements engineering is to provide high quality requirements for a system or solution. These requirements are then utilised by developers to produce a high quality system. They also assist project managers to better plan the schedule and costing of information technology projects, resultinq in cost savinqs. The problem is that although formal definitions and processes do exist for requirements engineering, projects are still failing due to the poor quality of requirements, This study investigates this phenomenon, in particular to understand why project teams cannot deliver high quality requirements. This is done against the background of the processes and standards available to organisations. The root cause of the problem is researched to determine whether the processes are the cause or whether other factors are contributing to poor quality requirements. This study makes use of two cases within one organisation to determine what the contributing factors are with regard to poor and good quality requirements. The cases provide information on why one project delivered good quality requirements and another project within same organisation, the same business unit, with the same support structure, delivered poor quality requirements. It is perceived that the case study method was a valid method in this particular research study as it provided the researcher with in-depth knowledge and observations on how organisations deal with the process of requirements engineering. It was found that the quality and clarity of communication or the lack thereof plays a significant role in the quality of requirements. This research provides an alternative view on the factors contributing towards poor quality requirements. This implies that organisations can train or educate requirements engineers in communication skills. The skill of communication allows a requirements engineer to create a trust relationship with customers, and this empowers him/her to elicit good quality requirements from the users.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:11897 |
| Date | 28 July 2014 |
| Creators | Marnewick, Annlizé |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Rights | University of Johannesburg |
Page generated in 0.0026 seconds