Origins and Consequences of Misunderstood/Slipped Requirements on Large Scale Software Projects

Abstract

Requirement engineering is the first and foremost phase of a software development life cycle. Making mistakes during this pro cess has enormous negative impact on all underlying activities of software development. Defects discovered when a system is deployed cost fifty to two hundred times more than defects discovered during software elicitation phase. In this research paper causes of missed requirements have been ident ified by literature review and supported by interviews and surveys from leading software industry professionals. In total, sixteen factors of missed requirements have been identified and divided into three categories namely; User factors, Analyst factors, and Common Factors. Understanding of these factors will aid in developing software with complete requirements and thus achieving customer satisfaction level and to avoid wastage of effort and poor quality software.