A Faceted Taxonomy of Requirements Changes in Agile Contexts
Kashumi Madampe, Rashina Hoda, John Grundy
Abstract
<italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Background:</i> Originally, developers aimed to identify most software requirements upfront in software development projects. However, agile methods explicitly encourage software requirements to be changed throughout development, i.e., many Requirements Changes (RCs) occur. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Objective:</i> The objective of this study is to better understand RCs and produce a taxonomy of RCs in agile contexts. <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Method:</i> We ran a mixed-methods approach comprising a series of studies: an interview-based study (10 participants from New Zealand and Australia), a focused literature review, and an in-depth survey (40 participants world-wide). <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Results:</i> Key characteristics of RCs in agile we found relate to different <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">types</i> and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">forms</i> , agile RCs have multiple <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">reasons</i> and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">sources</i> , they are brought by different <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">carriers</i> , and their emergence in agile is via a variety of <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">events.</i> <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Summary:</i> The presented taxonomy provides a guide for software practitioners to use to help manage RC-related issues in agile contexts.