Towards optimal quality requirement documentation in agile software development: a multiple case study

TL;DR

This study explores how practitioners perceive quality requirement documentation in agile development and proposes a model to improve its effectiveness, addressing a key research gap.

Contribution

It provides insights into practitioner perceptions and factors influencing QR documentation, and introduces a model to support optimal QR documentation in ASD.

Findings

Practitioners see QR documentation as important but challenging.

Factors influencing QR documentation include team experience and project context.

A model for supporting QR documentation in ASD is proposed.

Abstract

Context-Agile software development (ASD) promotes minimal documentation and often prioritizes functional requirements over quality requirements (QRs). The minimal documentation emphasis may be beneficial in reducing time-to-market for software. However, it can also be a concern, especially with QRs, since they are challenging to specify and document and are crucial for software success. Therefore, understanding how practitioners perceive the importance of QR documentation is valuable because it can provide insight into how they approach this task. It also helps in developing models and guidelines that support the documentation of QRs in ASD, which is a research gap. Objective: We aim to understand practitioners' perceptions of QR documentation and factors influencing this task to derive a model that supports optimal QR documentation in ASD. Method: We conducted a multiple case study involving 12 participants from three cases that apply ASD. Please refer to the document to read the full version of the abstract.