Requirements Engineering Challenges for Social Sector Software Development: Insights from Multiple Case Studies

Abstract

Diversity is a great challenge for software engineers in social sector context. The objective of this paper is to contribute to the identification of the RE processes and associated challenges in releasing the software in the social sector markets; for which an exploratory case study is conducted. The outcome of the case study indicates that the diversity limits the ability to involve the representative samples of user populations using the same set of RE tools and techniques as one size fits all solution for all segments. The diverse user base must be partitioned into different segments, with each segment triggered using a suitable set of RE techniques i.e. traditional and crowd based RE. The diverse perspectives learned as a result of the interaction with each segment, must be merged together into a single perspective about the software meant to be used in the social sector. There is a need for new RE process specially designed for handling the complexities of social sector, which this paper terms as Social Sector Requirement Engineering (SSRE). There is an increased need for collaboration between government social sector institutions and software engineers to get access to diverse customers to improve software quality.