Requirements Engineering Decision Making: Relationships among Decision Characteristics

Time efficiency is crucial for decision making in large scale Market Driven Requirements Engineering. In order to identify what factors influence the decision lead time and outcome, we conducted a retrospective case study at a large product software manufacturer and analyzed seven possible relationships among decision characteristics. A large requirements engineering decision log was used to statistically test all hypotheses and the results were cross-validated using a survey among similar software manufacturers. The validated results show that the number of products affected by a decision has a positive relationship with the time needed to take a decision. Furthermore, a higher number of products implies a longer decision lead time. Results also show that when a change request originates from an important customer, the request is sooner accepted than changes requested internally. For efficient requirements management, our findings support that decision making activities can be carefully refined in large scale requirements engineering processes. Requirements Engineer Decision Making Relationships among Decision Characteristics