Effects of environmental dynamicity on requirements engineering for complex systems

Abstract

With customers demanding more and more holistic answers to their problems, solution providers respond with complex systems, integrating product, service and ICT elements into their offer. These solutions need to be aligned to a high number of requirements, coming not only from the individual customer but also from an environment of network partners, technology providers and other stakeholders. Especially for Product-Service Systems, where the solution provider takes responsibility in the operational phase, this environment is dynamic over the system life cycle. Stakeholders may enter or leave, as well as changing needs and technological capabilities. This makes the requirements towards the solution volatile, demanding a suitable Requirements Engineering approach. In this paper, it is discussed how environmental dynamicity can be monitored for its effect on requirements, with a special focus on organizational issues. Through a literature review and industrial case studies it is analysed, how it can be ensured that environmental changes can be taken into account in Requirements Engineering, leading to an optimal system configuration to address the customer problem.