Requirement engineering elicitation methods

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the perceptions of 19 requirement engineering (RE) techniques in Kuwait in term of three criteria “awareness,” “use,” and “perceived value generated over past system development projects.” Also, this paper aims to examine possible relationships between these RE techniques and two information system development success factors. Design/methodology/approach This paper develops a questionnaire and tests with a sample of respondents from 175 organizations in Kuwait. Findings Results show that: Arab culture influence perception of RE techniques; most companies have good knowledge of different techniques; several different techniques for identifying and analyzing customer requirements are used; the most highly valued RE techniques are decision trees, goal oriented, prototyping, data flow diagram (DFD), and interviews; six techniques (tree analysis, role playing, unified modeling language, Kawakita Jiro method, flow charts, and Ishikawa) are found to have the least perceived value; and only two techniques (prototyping and decision tree) are highly correlated with the statement “Obtaining the right requirements is a critical success factor for system development,” while other three techniques (quality function deployment, DFD and role playing) are correlated with “We experienced problems during past system developments projects because of wrong requirements collection.” Research limitations/implications The study sheds light on perceptions on RE techniques perception in Kuwait where less is known about the subject from Western researchers. Practical implications This paper suggests re‐examining university curriculums in order to prepare students for familiarity with techniques that have proven their effectiveness elsewhere and call for more collaboration between academia and practitioners in order to appropriate research outcomes. In addition, this paper is of benefit to foreign consulting companies willing to penetrate the Gulf Cooperative Council. Originality/value This is the first Arab study that sheds light on system development practices in the Arab world.