What If People Learn Requirements Over Time? A Rough Introduction to Requirements Economics

TL;DR

This paper introduces requirements economics, a new perspective on how learning and time influence requirement changes and their associated costs in Requirements Engineering projects.

Contribution

It proposes a novel framework incorporating learning and time as key variables in requirements change analysis, forming the basis of requirements economics.

Findings

Learning and time significantly impact requirement changes.

Requirements economics helps quantify costs associated with evolving requirements.

Incorporating learning into requirements engineering can improve project outcomes.

Abstract

The overall objective of Requirements Engineering is to specify, in a systematic way, a system that satisfies the expectations of its stakeholders. Despite tremendous effort in the field, recent studies demonstrate this is objective is not always achieved. In this paper, we discuss one particularly challenging factor to Requirements Engineering projects, namely the change of requirements. We proposes a rough discussion of how learning and time explain requirements changes, how it can be introduced as a key variable in the formulation of the Requirements Engineering Problem, and how this induces costs for a requirements engineering project. This leads to a new discipline of requirements economics.