Issues of Requirements Elicitation on

the Development of Software Projects

A Research Article Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the

Degree of

MAGISTER INGENERIAE

In

ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT

at the

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

Of the

UNIVERSITY of JOHANNESBURG

by

Jojo Mbumba Kawayongo

8th of October 2015

Table of content ..................................................................................................................... I

Abstract..................................................................................................................................ii

1. Introduction .................................................................................................................... 1

1. Issues of Requirements Elicitation ................................................................................. 2

1.1. Project Scope ............................................................................................................. 2

1.2. Challenges with Project Scope ................................................................................... 3

1.3. Origin of Poor Project Scope Determination ............................................................... 3

1.4. Overcoming Problems of Scope ................................................................................. 5

2. Research Method........................................................................................................... 5

3. Findings and Discussion ................................................................................................ 6

4. Conclusion and Future Work .......................................................................................... 8

5. Acknowledgement.......................................................................................................... 8

REFERENCES ..................................................................................................................... 9

i
 Jojo Mbumba Kawayongo, Deon Kruger, Project Management,
University of Johannesburg, South Africa

email:jojokaway@gmail.com

Abstract
Requirements elicitation is one of the most important activities in requirements engineering
process as it aims at identifying the requirements of the software project to be developed
(Azadegan, Xusen Cheng et al. 2013). Requirements elicitation suffers from many problems
including the problems of understanding, volatility, and scope (Christel, Kang 1992).
However, this research study is concerned with the problems of scope, and specifically the
impact of requirements elicitation issues on project scope. In this study, the use of a
qualitative information gathering approach such as document analysis, surveys, and
interviews with domain expert was employed to investigate the problems of requirements
elicitation on project scope. This research study seeks to understand the problems of
requirements elicitation that contribute to poor scope determination. In addition, this research
study assists and provides practitioners with guidelines on issues of requirements elicitation
that impact on project scope, and thus on the overall project performance.

Keywords Requirements Engineering, Requirements Elicitation Issues, Project Scope

Paper type Research Article

ii
 1. Introduction
Recent evidence suggests that requirements engineering activities contribute to the
development of successful software projects (Haron, Harun et al. 2012). Damian and Chisan
(2006) found that requirements engineering impacts on the quality of software projects. Li
Jiang and Eberlein (2007), and Sethia and Pillai (2014) have also shown that poor
requirements engineering has been one of the major problems of software development
projects. For Saiedian and Dale (2000), requirements engineering is one of the most
important stages in software development activities. Requirements engineering involves
several activities including requirements elicitation (Tahir, Ahmad 2010).

Requirements elicitation is the first step (Romero, Vizcaino et al. 2009) and the most crucial
phase (Davey, Parker 2015) in any software development projects. Sethia and Pillai (2014)
have found that requirements elicitation is a fundamental activity in the development of
software projects, and has a great impact on the entire project performance. The term
requirements elicitation refers to the process of extracting and identifying requirements of the
system to be developed (Ahmad 2008). The aim of requirements elicitation is to develop an
understanding of the proposed system in order to satisfy the customer needs and
expectations (Abran, Bourque 2004).

Davey and Parker (2015) have identified several problems of requirements elicitation such
as communication issues between systems analysts and users, and requirements change
during the development of software projects. For Christel and Kang (1992), requirements
elicitation issues may be classified into three main categories including problems of volatility,
problems of understanding, and problems of scope. In this research article, however, a great
emphasis is put on the issues of requirements elicitation and its impact on project scope.

The problems of scope have been applied to situations where requirements provide too little
or too much information (Sethia, Pillai 2014). According to (Guide 2001), the problems of
scope include both project scope which is the work that needs to be performed in order to
deliver a product with well-defined characteristics and functions, and product scope which
refers to characteristics and functions to consider in the development of a product or service.

For Neetu Kumari and Pillai (2014), one of the greatest challenges to successful project
development has been thought as project scope determination. It is also shown in
(Bjarnason, Wnuk et al. 2012, Pillai 2013) that one of the leading causes for project failure is
project scope determination. Poor project scope determination can have a significant impact
on project cost, schedule and performance (Neetu Kumari, Pillai 2014). Neetu and Kumari

1
(2014) have shown that poor project scope determination is due to problems of knowledge,
communications issues, prioritization difficulties, inadequate features and functions, lack of
handling external project pressure, over-scoping and De-scoping.

For this study, a qualitative information gathering approach such as document analysis,
surveys, and interviews with domain expert was used to investigate the issues of
requirements elicitation on project scope determination. It also highlights some of the
difficulties encountered in project scoping during requirements elicitation activity.

The remaining part of the paper proceeds as follows: This paper first gives a brief overview
of the recent history of requirements elicitation issues and their impact on project scope. It
then gives a brief description of the research method and thereafter reports on all the
findings concerning the issues requirements elicitation that impact on project scope. Finally,
these findings will be discussed, and a conclusion will be provided.

1. Issues of Requirements Elicitation

According to Christel and Kang (1992), requirements elicitation issues can be classified into
three categories including problems of understanding, problems of volatility, and problems of
scope from which this research is developed.

1.1. Project Scope

Requirements elicitation refers to the activity through which systems analysts interact with
stakeholders in order to determine the requirements of the system to be developed (Davey,
Parker 2015). For Neetu Kumari and Pillai (2013), it is important during requirements
elicitation to understand the boundaries of the proposed system. Mirza et al. (2013) have
also mentioned the importance of defining the boundaries of projects.

It is believed that the process of defining the proposed system boundaries or project
boundaries can be thought of as project scope. According to the (Guide 2001), project scope
is defined as a set of activities that need to be done in order to deliver a product with well-
defined properties and functions. Despite its efficacy, project scope suffers from several
drawbacks and represents a problem for developing successful projects (Neetu Kumari,
Pillai 2014).

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 1.2. Challenges with Project Scope
Project scope determination is identified as one of the factors contributing to project failures
(Bjarnason, Wnuk et al. 2012). For Ogwueleka (2012), incomplete inputs from stakeholders
may lead to poor scope determination. Finkelstein (1994) has found that lack of experience
on the part of systems analysts in requirements elicitation may result in problems of scope. It
is also shown that it is almost impossible to define a project scope that satisfies all the
stakeholders involved in a project (Wnuk, Regnell et al. 2011). For Nik and Kasirun (2011),
continuous changes of requirements can also have a great influence on project scope
determination. Ashraf and Ahsan (2010) have found that project scope determination can be
very challenging when the objective of the system to be developed is not well understood.
Aranda et al. (2010) stated that around 40% to 60% of projects fail because of poor definition
of requirements. For Ashraf and Ahsan (2010), the difficulty in project scope determination
happens when requirements are not in agreement with the expected level of information.

According to Christel and Kang (1992), problems of scope result from poorly defined system
boundaries and superfluous design information. Problems of scope can occur when systems
analysts are not certain what features should be included in the product to be delivered
(Ashraf, Ahsan 2010). On the other hand, they have found that users also do not know what
features they really want to see in the final product. Mirza et al. (2013) have found that poor
definition of scope impacts negatively on project performance. They have classified
problems of project scope into a number of categories including:

- Unclear scope definition

- Incomplete scope
- Insufficient scope document
- Not sharing scope statement

In addition, they found that if project boundaries are not well-defined, the cost of the final
project will be higher because of changes that will be made during the project development.
It should be noted that the cost of the final product to be delivered will be increased because
of the amount of rework and change in project schedule (Mirza, Pourzolfaghar et al. 2013).

1.3. Origin of Poor Project Scope Determination

Previous studies have also reported that unsuccessful project outcomes stem from the
following (factors that affect, Barry and lang 2003):

- Extremely large project scope

- Scope change

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 - Difficulty in defining objectives
- Conflicting goals on the part of stakeholders

For Ashraf and Ahsan (2010), the problems of scope result from several sources as depicted
in figure 1. They found that the problems of scope during requirements elicitation is caused
by the lack of not considering all the requirements of the system or product to be developed,
misunderstanding of the objectives because requirements are not well identified in the initial
phase, and also because stakeholders find it difficult to trust themselves at the start of the
project.

Figure 1: Origin of problems of scope (Ashraf, Ahsan 2010)

Zowghi and Coulin (2005) also found that any change of requirements during requirements
elicitation results in change of project scope. They have shown that some of the aspects
including political, economic, psychological, social, legal, historical and geographical may
also impact on project scope. Bjarnason et al. (2012) identified factors contributing to project
scope change such as large amount of requirements leading to requirements instability, lack
of knowledge on appropriate software available within the organization to address
requirements, conflicting requirements, communication issues between stakeholders, lack of
business strategy, lack of appropriate tools and techniques for dealing with various nature of
projects, and poor understanding of scope selection and objectives.

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 1.4. Overcoming Problems of Scope
According to Ashraf and Ahsan (2010), (Ashraf, Ahsan 2010)scope management needs to
be practiced regularly in order to control change during project or product development. For
Mirza et al. (2013), a number of aspects such as identifying real requirements, having a
careful thought when writing requirements, proving and validating requirements need be
considered when defining the scope.

2. Research Method
To date various methods have been developed and introduced to determine the issue of
requirements elicitation on the development of software projects (Hickey, Davis 2003). For
this study, a qualitative information gathering approach such as document analysis, surveys,
and interviews with domain expert was employed to investigate the problems of
requirements elicitation on software development projects. A qualitative information
gathering approach was selected because the use of surveys and interviews are found to be
very effective during requirements elicitation process (Davey, Cope 2008).

The objective of this research was to investigate the issues of requirements elicitation that
result in project scope change. This research also looked at what factors need to be
considered to overcome the problems of requirements elicitation that lead to change of
scope during the development of software projects. This was achieved through the following
processes:

- Performing a systematic literature review on issues of requirements elicitation and its

impact on project scope.
- Providing practitioners with a guideline of requirements elicitation issues that impact
on project scope, and thus on project performance.
- Determine successful factors in requirements elicitation for overcoming the problems
of project scope.
- Test the theory with empirical data collected from surveys and interviews.

Figure 2 presents the research method as well as different phases involved in order to meet
with the objectives of this research study. This research method specifically included In-
depth interviews or surveys to determine the influential factors of project scope during
requirements elicitation. A document analysis was also conducted to determine the state-of-
art aspects of requirements elicitation that impacts on project scope.

5
Based on the results obtained from conducting surveys or interviews and document analysis,
a comparison study needs to be performed to determine a gap between theoretical and
empirical aspects of requirements elicitation issues on project scope.

Figure 2: Research method adapted from (Neetu Kumari, Pillai 2013)

3. Findings and Discussion

To assess requirements elicitation issues and its impact on project scope; surveys,
interviews and document analysis were conducted. The research process of this study
followed the guidelines adapted from Neetu and Pillai (2013) as shown in figure 2.

There was a significant correlation between requirements elicitation and project scope. As
mentioned in the literature review, project boundaries need to be well-defined prior to the
development of software projects. This is to show that systems analysts need to understand
and identify requirements of all the stakeholders involved in the process. By identifying all
the requirements, project scope can be well-defined, and thus the development of software
projects is likely to be successful. It should be also noted that the level of expertise with
which systems analysts interact with stakeholders should be high in order to understand the
problem domain of requirements or the proposed system. This may help overcome the

6
problem of unclear and missing requirements identified by Tsumaki and Tamai (2006), and
thus prevent scope change during software development projects.

It was shown that incomplete input on the part of stakeholders during requirements elicitation
may lead to poor scope determination. This finding suggests that stakeholders need to have
knowledge and understanding of the system requirements in order to communicate and
translate effectively the requirements to systems analysts. Effective communication between
systems analysts and stakeholders will improve the gathering of requirements during
requirements elicitation. In addition, the likelihood of scope change during software
development projects will be reduced significantly.

Another important finding suggests that lack of systems analysts experience may lead to
poor requirements elicitation. If systems analysts do not have knowledge concerning the
requirements of the proposed system, the elicited requirements are likely to be inconsistent.
This results in incomplete requirements and thus poor scope definition. It should be noted
that poor understanding of requirements on the part of systems analysts results in poor
scope definition. Therefore, systems analysts and stakeholders need to have the same
understanding of requirements in order for successful products, systems or services to be
developed.

Also, since requirements elicitation involved all the stakeholders, there is a possibility for
disagreements about requirements between stakeholders. In fact, some part of stakeholders
will fight for their requirements to be prioritized. As a result, conflicting requirements will take
place, and this will have an impact on project scope.

To overcome the issues of requirements elicitation and thus to prevent scope change during
the development of software projects, Sharma and Pandey (2014) suggest the following:

- Understanding of the problem domain of the proposed system

- Identifying all the stakeholders involved in the process as well as their domain
knowledge
- Selecting appropriate requirements elicitation techniques
- Understanding of the objectives of the proposed systems

Hansen et al. (2009) have described a number of requirements elicitation techniques for
practitioners to choose from. These requirements elicitation techniques involve various
characteristics and should be selected in association with the nature of the project or the
proposed system. Therefore, systems analysts need to have a high level of expertise in

7
order to identify the appropriate technique during requirements elicitation, and thus reducing
the possibility for changing the project scope.

4. Conclusion and Future Work

The present study was designed to determine the issues of requirements elicitation, and
specifically its impact on project scope. This study has shown that requirements elicitation is
strongly correlated to project scope. This finding suggests that any issues of requirements
such as unclear and inconsistent requirements, conflicting requirements, misunderstanding
of the proposed system objectives, and lack of domain knowledge on the part of both
systems analysts and stakeholders may have a significant impact on project scope. This
includes missing the deadline of the project due to change of requirements, and also the
amount of rework due to scope change takes place and involves a lot of money.

It was suggested that to overcome the issues of requirements elicitation such as incomplete
requirements, conflicting requirements, lack of domain knowledge on the part of systems
analysts and users, and thus reducing the possibility of scope change, an appropriate
techniques need to be considered during requirements elicitation. This requirement
elicitation technique should be selected in order to help systems analysts and stakeholders
gain an understanding of the proposed system, and thus identify all the requirements of the
system to be developed. As a result, any change of scope in the development of software
projects is likely to be reduced.

This study contributes to an existing knowledge of issues of requirements elicitation that

impact on the success of software projects. It also provides practitioners with guidelines
concerning the impact of requirements elicitation issues on project scope.

This study has also thrown up many questions in need of further investigations. Future
research should therefore measure the impact of level of expertise of systems analysts and
stakeholders prior to the requirements elicitation process, and thus determine its effect on
project scope.

5. Acknowledgement
The researcher would like to express many thanks to all the respondents for their support in
this research study. The researcher wishes special thanks to Mr Deon Kruger of the
department of engineering management at University of Johannesburg for his interaction
with students during lecture.

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