Analysing requirements in a case study of pairing

Abstract

Agile software development methods suggest that sharing tasks between a pair of developers has advantages over letting them work as individuals. This effect has been observed in designing and coding tasks too. However, it is not yet known whether or not pairing on requirements engineering tasks could deliver a similar benefit at an early phase of software projects. Based on first-hand experience in pairing development of the OpenOME tool, we analyse the evolving stakeholder requirements using the i*/Tropos method. Our findings show that sharing tasks of different roles becomes more effective when those roles are played by one stakeholder, possibly due to smaller communication delay at a shorter distance. © 2011 ACM.