Identifying Key Stakeholders as Part of Requirements Elicitation in Software Ecosystems

Abstract

Software ecosystems (SECOs) involve a number of actors that work together for a shared market. The software products within the software ecosystem typically have a common technological platform, and consist of a keystone player at the center of the ecosystem with niche players addressing market segments the keystone player would otherwise not have access to. Stakeholder identification is critical to the financial and functional success of software development projects, however the task of identifying all stakeholders in a SECO is often not possible due to the high volume of stakeholders and open interfaces. The identification of key stakeholders should ensure that the most relevant requirements are elicited during a software planning cycle. The objective of this research is to examine how key stakeholders can be identified in complex SECOs. This research takes a design science approach and the main component of the current research is the design of an artifact in the form of a reference process model, that is applied in a real-world environment to develop a business process model. Consequently, this research aims to facilitate academia and industry in SECO optimization, especially from a requirements management perspective.