Coping with requirements uncertainty - A case study of an enterprise-wide record management system

Abstract

Enterprise systems development projects (ESDPs) often face requirements uncertainty (RU). Thus, it is essential that their project managers can cope with it. In order to gain insights into managing different RU situations, we conducted a longitudinal interpretive case study. We investigated the requirements analysis phase as well as subsequent phases of an ESDP in an international insurance company for 17 months. Thereby, we identified 42 RU situations and elaborately observed how practitioners coped with them. Based on these in-depth observations, we derive recommendations for applying requirements engineering techniques in RU situations. Thus, for researchers, we contribute to enterprise system and requirements engineering literature by making a first step towards a framework for coping with RU in ESDPs at a situational level. For practitioners, we elaborate on how and why certain techniques succeed or fail to reduce RU, thus helping them identify techniques most suited for certain situations. © 2014 IEEE.