Requirements engineering for emergent application software

Abstract

The field of Requirements Engineering is arguably one of the most sensitive areas in the development of not only software but more importantly in the development of systems and organisational structures and processes supported by such systems. As service systems play an increasingly important role in today’s economy, the ability of software to respond to emergent real-world contexts becomes a key-enabling factor to developing new and unpredictable business models. This paper, which is partly based on the keynote lecture given by the author at ICEIS 2012, considers the field of emerged enterprise application software and critically examines the applicability of the methodology factors underpinning much of the practice in Requirements Engineering, to such systems.