Preventing Incomplete/Hidden Requirements: Reflections on Survey Data from Austria and Brazil

TL;DR

This paper analyzes survey data from Austria and Brazil to identify causes of incomplete/hidden requirements in software projects and discusses strategies to prevent this critical RE problem.

Contribution

It provides a detailed characterization of the causes and mitigation actions for incomplete/hidden requirements based on global survey data from diverse organizations.

Findings

Incomplete/hidden requirements are a critical RE problem in both countries.

Main causes include poor communication and insufficient stakeholder involvement.

Reported mitigation actions focus on improved requirements elicitation and validation.

Abstract

Many software projects fail due to problems in requirements engineering (RE). The goal of this paper is analyzing a specific and relevant RE problem in detail: incomplete/hidden requirements. We replicated a global family of RE surveys with representatives of software organizations in Austria and Brazil. We used the data to (a) characterize the criticality of the selected RE problem, and to (b) analyze the reported main causes and mitigation actions. Based on the analysis, we discuss how to prevent the problem. The survey includes 14 different organizations in Austria and 74 in Brazil, including small, medium and large sized companies, conducting both, plan-driven and agile development processes. Respondents from both countries cited the incomplete/hidden requirements problem as one of the most critical RE problems. We identified and graphically represented the main causes and documented solution options to address these causes. Further, we compiled a list of reported mitigation actions. From a practical point of view, this paper provides further insights into common causes of incomplete/hidden requirements and on how to prevent this problem.